THE  LIFE 


OF 


JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 


THE  LIFE  OF  JAMES 
McNEILL  WHISTLER 


THE  GENTLE  ART  OF  MAKING 
ENEMIES 

By  JAMES  McNEILL  WHISTLER 
In  one  volume,  polt  4to,  price  ios.  6d.  net 


A  few  remaining  copies  of  the 
Original  Edition  of 

THE  LIFE  OF  JAMES  McNEILL 
WHISTLER 

In  two  volumes,  crown  4to,  fully  illustrated 
price  36s.  net 

LONDON  :  WILLIAM  HEINEMANN, 

21  Bedford  Street,  W.C. 


THE  LIFE  OF  JAMES 
McNEILL  WHISTLER 


BY 

E.  R.  and  J.  PENNELL 

NEW  AND  REVISED  EDITION 
THE  FIFTH 

ILLUSTRATED 


LONDON:  WILLIAM  HEINEMANN 

PHILADELPHIA  :  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

MCMXI 


First  Printed,  October  1908 
Second  Edition,  December  1908 
Third  Edition,  February  1909 
Fourth  Edition,  July  1909 
Fijth  Revised  Edition,  October  1911 


All  Rights  Reserved 


aZTTY  CENTER 
LIBRARY 


PUBLISHER’S  NOTE  TO  THE  FIFTH  EDITION 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pennell’s  authorised  Life  of  James  McNeill  Whistler 
appeared  in  two  volumes  in  October  1908,  and  has  had  to  be  reprinted 
in  that  form  three  times  since  then.  Its  sale  even  in  that  comparatively 
expensive  form  has  been  an  unexpectedly  large  one,  proving  without 
doubt  that  interest  in  Whistler’s  life  is  alive  and  growing.  During 
the  three  years  since  its  first  publication  much  new  material  has 
come  into  the  hands  of  the  authors,  and  a  complete  revision  of  the 
book  has  therefore  become  necessary.  The  present  volume  is,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  a  new  one.  Many  of  the  older  illustrations  in 
the  earlier  editions  have  been  superseded  by  new  ones,  a  number  of 
which  are  reproduced  for  the  first  time. 

For  the  new  material  included  in  this  edition  the  authors  and  the 
publisher  are  indebted  to  friends  and  numerous  sympathetic  corre¬ 
spondents,  and  they  wish  to  express  their  indebtedness  especially  to 
Mr.  John  W.  Beatty,  Director  of  the  Carnegie  Institute  in  Pittsburgh ; 
Mr.  E.  D.  Brooks  ;  Mr.  Clifford  Gore  Chambers ;  Mr.  E.  T.  Cook  ; 
Mr.  Leon  Dabo  ;  Mr.  Frederick  Dielmann  ;  Messrs.  Dowdeswell  ; 
M.  Theodore  Duret  ;  Mr.  A.  J.  Eddy ;  Mrs.  Wickham  Flower  ; 
Right  Hon.  Jonathan  Hogg  ;  Mr.  H.  S.  Hubbell  ;  Mr.  Will  H.  Low ; 
Mr.  Burton  Mansfield  ;  Judge  Parry  ;  Mr.  H.  Reinhardt  ;  Mr.  H.  S. 
Ridings  ;  Mr.  Albert  Rouiller  ;  Miss  Alice  Rouiller  ;  Mr.  William 
Scott  ;  M.  Strohlen  ;  Mr.  Ross  Turner  ;  Mr.  C.  E.  G.  Turner  ; 
Mr.  C.  Howard  Walker  ;  Mr.  J.  H.  Wrenn. 


h 


v 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I.  THE  WHISTLER  FAMILY.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
THIRTY-FOUR  TO  EIGHTEEN  FORTY-THREE 
Whistler’s  Ancestors — His  Parents — Birth — Early  Tears 

CHAPTER  II.  IN  RUSSIA.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  FORTY- 
THREE  TO  EIGHTEEN  FORTY-NINE 

Life  in  Russia — Schooldays — Begins  his  Art  Studies  in  the  Imperial 
Academy  of  Fine  Arts — Death  of  Major  Whistler — Return  to  America 

CHAPTER  III.  SCHOOLDAYS  IN  POMFRET.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  FORTY-NINE  TO  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-ONE 

The  Pomfret  School  and  Schoolmates — Early  Drawings 

CHAPTER  IV.  WEST  POINT.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY- 
ONE  TO  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-FOUR 

Whistler  as  Cadet  in  the  U.S.  Military  Academy — His  Studies — Failure — 
Stories  told  of  him — His  Estimate  of  West  Point 

CHAPTER  V.  THE  COAST  SURVEY.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
FIFTY-FOUR  AND  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-FIVE 

Life  in  W ashington — Obtains  Position  as  Draughtsman  in  the  U.S.  Coast 
and  Geodetic  Survey — First  Plates — Resignation — Starts  for  Paris 

CHAPTER  VI.  STUDENT  DAYS  IN  THE  LATIN  QUARTER. 
THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-FIVE  TO  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY- 
NINE 

Arrival  in  Paris — Enters  as  Student  at  Gleyre's — His  Fellow  Students — 
Adventures — Journey  to  Alsace 

CHAPTER  VII.  WORKING  DAYS  IN  THE  LATIN  QUARTER. 
THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-FIVE  TO  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY- 
NINE  CONTINUED 

His  Studies — Work  at  the  Louvre — Visit  to  Art  Treasures  Exhibition  at 
Manchester — Etchings — Paintings— Rejection  at  the  Salon  and  Exhibition 
in  Bonvin’s  Studio 

CHAPTER  VIII.  THE  BEGINNINGS  IN  LONDON.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-NINE  TO  EIGHTEEN  SIXTY-THREE 

In  London  with  thcHadens — First  Appearance  at  Royal  Academy — Kindness 
td'f  rench  Fellow  Students — Shares  Studio  with  Du  Maurier — Gaieties — Mr. 
Arthur  Severn’s  Reminiscences — Work  on  the  River — Jo — Etchings  Pub¬ 
lished  by  Mr.  Edmund  T homas 


TAGB 

I 

6 

18 

20 

2? 

33 

46 

S3 

vii 


Contents 


CHAPTER  IX.  THE  BEGINNINGS  IN  LONDON.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-NINE  TO  EIGHTEEN  SIXTY-THREE  CON¬ 
TINUED 

Paintings  and  Exhibitions— The  Music  Room— Visits  to.  Mr.  and 
Airs.  Edwin  Edwards — Summer  in  Brittany — “  The  White  Girl 
Berners  Street  Gallery — Baudelaire  on  his  Etchings — Illustrations — Salon 
des  Refuses — First  Gold  Aledal 

CHAPTER  X.  CHELSEA  DAYS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  SIXTY- 
THREE  TO  EIGHTEEN  SIXTY-SIX 

Settles  with  his  Alother  at  No.  7  Lindsey  Row ,  Chelsea— The  Greaves 
Family — The  Limerston  Street  Studio  and  Mr.  J.  E.  Christie  Rossetti 
The  Tudor  House  Circle ,  Swinburne ,  Meredith,  Frederick  Sandys,  Howell— 

“  Blue  and  White  ” — W.  M.  Rossetti’s  Reminiscences 

CHAPTER  XI.  CHELSEA  DAYS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  SIXTY- 
THREE  TO  EIGHTEEN  SIXTY-SIX  CONTINUED 

The  Japanese  Pictures— “  The  Princesse  du  Pays  de  la  Porcelaine  ”— 
Japanese  Influence — ■“  The  Little  White  Girl  ” — F antin’ s  “  Hommage  a 
Delacroix ” — “ The  Toast” — Arrival  in  London  of  Dr.  Whistler  At 
T rouville  with  Courbet — Journey  to  Valparaiso 

CHAPTER  XII.  CHELSEA  DAYS  CONTINUED.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  SIXTY-SIX  TO  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-TWO  . 

Return  to  London — Removal  to  No.  2  Lindsey  Row — The  House  and  its 
Decorations — The  18 67  Exhibition  in  Paris — Affair  at  the  Burlington 
Fine  Arts  Club — “  Symphony  in  White,  No.  III.,”  the  First  Picture 

Exhibited  as  a  Symphony— Theories— Development— Discouragement— 

Mr.  Fred  Jameson's  Remininscences — Decoration — Hamerton's  “  Etching 
and  Etchers”— Etchings  and  Dry-points— Exhibitions— Rejection  at' the 
Royal  Academy— First  Exhibition  of  Picture  as  a  N octurne— Relations 
to  the  Royal  Academy 

CHAPTER  XIII.  NOCTURNES.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY- 
TWO  TO  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-EIGHT 

N octurnes — Extent  of  Debt  to  J apanese — Alethods  and  Alaterials  Subjects 
— Origin  of  Title — His  Explanation  in  “  The  Gentle  Art  ” 

CHAPTER  XIV.  PORTRAITS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY- 
ONE  TO  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-FOUR 

“  qjhe  Alother  ” — “  Carlyle  ” — “  Miss  Alexander  ” — Mr.  and  Mrs. 
G  Leyland — Mrs.  Louis  Huth—Show  of  his  own  Work  in  Pall  Mall—* 
Indignation  roused  by  his  Titles 


Contents 

PAGE 

CHAPTER  XV.  THE  OPEN  DOOR.  THE  YEAR  EIGHTEEN 
SEVENTY-FOUR  AND  AFTER  I27 

Whistler's  Gaiety  and  Hospitality— His  Amusement  in  Society— His 
Dinners  and  Sunday  Breakfasts — Reminiscences  of  his  Entertainments 
His  Talk — Clubs — Restaurants — The  Theatre 
CHAPTER  XVI.  THE  PEACOCK  ROOM.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
SEVENTY-FOUR  TO  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-SEVEN  *42 

Work  at  Exhibitions  and  in  the  Studio— Portrait  of  Irving — “  Rosa 
C  order  “  The  Fur  Jacket”— “  Connie  Gilchrist”— The  Peacock 

Room — Mr.  Ley  land’s  House  in  Prince’s  Gate — Its  Decoration  Whistler  s 
Scheme  for  the  Dining-room  and  its  Development — The  W ork  Finished 
Quarrel  with  Leyland 

CHAPTER  XVII.  THE  GROSVENOR  GALLERY.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-SEVEN  AND  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY- 
EIGHT  I5I 

Sir  Coutt  Lindsay’s  New  Gallery — First  Exhibition  at  the  Grosvenor— 
Whistler’s  Contributions— Ruskin’s  Criticism  of  “  The  Falling  Rocket” 
in  “  Fors  Clavigera  Whistler  sues  him  for  Libel— Etchings— Lithographs 

— Drawings  of  Blue  and  White  for  Sir  Henry  Thompson  s  Catalogue 
Caricatures — Sends  a  Second  Time  to  the  Grosvenor 

CHAPTER  XVIII.  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  THE  YEAR  EIGHTEEN 
SEVENTY-EIGHT  U8 

Paris  Universal  Exhibition  of  1878 — Harmony  in  Yellow  and  Gold — 
Whistler  as  Decorator— Lady  Archibald  Campbell’s  Appreciation— Plan 
for  Opening  an  Atelier  for  Students— No.  2  Lindsey  Row  given  up—E.  W . 
Godwin  builds  the  White  House  for  him — His  Mother  s  Health  She  leaves 
him  for  Hastings — Money  Difficulties — Mezzotints  of  the  Carlyle  and 
“  Rosa  Corder” 

CHAPTER  XIX.  THE  TRIAL.  THE  YEAR  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY- 
EIGHT  i65 

Whistler’s  Reasons  for  the  Action  against  Ruskin — His  P  osition  and  Ruskin  s 
compared— Refusal  of  Artists  to  support  W histler—T rial  in  the  Exchequer 
Chamber,  Westminster — Verdict — The  General  Criticism — Mr.  T.  Arm¬ 
strong  and  Mr.  Arthur  Severn  on  the  Trial — Collection  to  pay  Ruskin  s 
Expenses — Failure  to  raise  one  for  Whistler — “  Whistler  v.  Ruskin  ” 

CHAPTER  XX.  BANKRUPTCY.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
SEVENTY-EIGHT  AND  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-NINE  180 

Whistler  again  at  the  Grosvenor — His  Critics — His  Financial  Embarrass¬ 
ments — His  Manner  of  meeting  them — Declared  Bankrupt — “  The  Gold 
Scab  ” — Commission  from  the  Fine  Art  Society  for  the  V enetian  Etchings — 

Starts  for  Venice — The  Sale  of  the  White  House — Sale  of  Blue  and  White, 
Pictures,  Prints,  idc.,  at  Sotheby’s 


Contents 

CHAPTER  XXL  VENICE.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY- 
NINE  AND  EIGHTEEN-EIGHTY 

Whistler's  Arrival  in  Venice — First  Impressions — Disappointments  and 
Difficulties — His  Friends  in  Venice  and  their  Memories  of  him — Duveneck 
and  his  “  Boys  " — Whistler's  Hard  Work — His  Lodgings  and  Restaurants — - 
The  Cafes — Stories  told  of  him — Reminiscences  of  Mr.  Harper  Pennington 
and  Mr.  Ralph  Curtis 

CHAPTER  XXII.  VENICE.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY- 
NINE  AND  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY  CONTINUED 

His  Work  in  Venice — Pastels  and  his  Methods — Etchings — Printing — 
Japanese  Method  of  Drawing — W ater-colours  and  Paintings 

CHAPTER  XXIII.  BACK  IN  LONDON.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
EIGHTY  AND  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-ONE 

Return  to  London  and  Sudden  Appearance  at  Fine  Art  Society's — Prints 
V enice  Plates — Exhibition  of  “  Fhe  Fwelve  "  at  the  Fine  Art  Society's — 
Exhibition  of  Venice  Pastels — Decoration  of  Gallery — Bewilderment  of 
Critics  and  the  Public — Death  of  his  Mother — “  Fhe  Piker  Papers  " — Fhe 
Portrait  of  his  Mother  exhibited  in  Philadelphia — Etchings  begin  to  be 
shown  in  America 

CHAPTER  XXIV.  THE  JOY  OF  LIFE.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
EIGHTY-ONE  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-FOUR 

Fakes  a  Studio  at  No.  13  Fite  Street — His  “  Joyousness  Letters  to  the 
Press — His  “  Amazing  "  Costumes — Portrait  of  Lady  Meux — His  Other 
Sitters — Mrs.  Marzetti's  Account  of  the  Painting  of  “  Fhe  Blue  Girl" — 
Lady  Archibald  Campbell's  Reminiscences  of  the  Sittings  for  her  Portrait — 
Portrait  of  M.  Duret — “  Fhe  Paddon  Papers  " — Second  Exhibition  of 
V enice  Etchings  at  the  Fine  Art  Society's — Excitement  it  created — Fhe 
“  Carlyle  "  at  Edinburgh — Proposal  to  buy  it  for  Scottish  National  Portrait 
Gallery — Comes  to  nothing — Whistler  involved  in  a  Church  Congress 

CHAPTER  XXV.  AMONG  FRIENDS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
EIGHTY-ONE  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-SEVEN 

Joseph  Pennell  meets  Whistler — First  Impressions — Fhe  “  Sarasate  " — 
Sir  Seymour  Haden 

CHAPTER  XXVI.  AMONG  FRIENDS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
EIGHTY-ONE  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-SEVEN  CONTINUED 
Whistler's  Friends  in  Fite  Street — Sir  Rennell  Rodd’s  Reminiscences — 
Oscar  Wilde — Reasons  for  the  Friendship  and  for  its  short  Duration — Fhe 
Followers — F heir  Devotion  and  their  Absurdities — Mr.  Harper  Pennington' s 
Reminiscences  of  Whistler  in  London 
x 


PAGE 

IS/ 


I94 


201 


209 


221 


223 


Contents 


PAGE 


CHAPTER  XXVII.  THE  STUDIO  IN  THE  FULHAM  ROAD. 
THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-FIVE  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY 
SEVEN 


Whistler  moves  to  the  Fulham  Road— Description  of  the  new  Studio- 
Pictures  in  Progress— Mr.  William  M.  Chase ,  his  Portrait  and  his 
Reminiscences — Plans  to  visit  America 


231 


CHAPTER  XXVIII.  THE  “TEN  O’CLOCK.”  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-FOUR  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-EIGHT  238 
Whistler  writes  the  “  Ten  O'Clock  "—Proposes  to  publish  it  as  Article- 
Then  to  deliver  it  as  Lecture  in  Ireland— Exhibition  of  his  W ork  in  Dublin 
—Arranges  with  Mrs.  D'Oyly  Carte  for  Lecture  in  London— The  “  Ten 
O'Clock  "  given  at  Prince's  Hall— The  Audience— The  Critics— Analysis  of 
the  “  Ten  O'Clock  "—Its  Delivery  in  Other  Places— Its  Publication — 
Swinburne's  Criticism 


CHAPTER  XXIX.  THE  BRITISH  ARTISTS.  THE  RISE.  THE 
YEARS  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-FOUR  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-SIX  248 
Approached  by  the  British  Artists— Elected  a  Member  of  the  Society— 

His  Position  as  Artist  at  this  Period  and  the  Position  of  the  Society- 
Reasons  for  the  Invitation  and  his  Acceptance— His  Interest  in  the  Society 
—His  Contributions  to  its  Exhibitions — The  Graham  Sale— Publication  of 
Twenty-Six  Etchings  by  Dowdeswell's— Exhibition  of  Notes ,  Harmonies , 
Nocturnes,  at  Dowdeswell's — Elected  President  of  the  British  Artists 

CHAPTER  XXX.  THE  BRITISH  ARTISTS.  THE  FALL.  THE 
YEARS  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-SIX  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY- 
EIGHT  259 

Whistler  as  President— His  Decoration  of  the  Gallery  and  Hanging  of 
Pictures— Indignation  by  Members — Visit  of  the  Prince  of  Wales 
Growing  Dissatisfaction  in  the  Society— —Jubilee  of  Queen  V ictona  - 
Whistler's  Congratulatory  Address— British  Artists  made  a  Royal  Society 
— Dissatisfaction  becomes  Open  W arfare — The  Crisis- — W  yke  Bayhss  elected 
President— Whistler's  Resignation 

CHAPTER  XXXI.  MARRIAGE.  THE  YEAR  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY- 
EIGHT  268 

Whistler's  Wedding — Reception  at  the  Tower  House — His  Wife— His 
Devotion— Influence  of  Marriage 

CHAPTER  XXXII.  THE  WORK  OF  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
EIGHTY  TO  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-TWO  271 

Water-colours — Etchings ,  Belgian  and  Dutch — Exhibition  of  Dutch  Etchings 
— Lithographs 


xi 


Contents 


PACE 


CHAPTER  XXXIII.  HONOURS.  EXHIBITIONS.  NEW  INTE¬ 
RESTS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-NINE  TO  EIGHTEEN 
NINETY-ONE  276 

Honours  from  Paris,  Munich,  and  Amsterdam — Dinner  to  Whistler — 

Paris  Universal  Exhibition  of  1889 — Exhibition  of  Whistler's  Work  in 
Queen  Square — Moves  to  No.  21  Cheyne  Walk — M.  Harry's  Impressions 
of  the  House — Portrait  of  the  Comte  de  Montesquiou — W.  E.  Henley  and 
“  National  Observer  " — New  Friends 

CHAPTER  XXXIV.  “  THE  GENTLE  ART.”  THE  YEAR  EIGHTEEN 
NINETY  285 

Whistler  Collects  his  Letters  and  Writings — Work  begun  by  Mr.  Sheridan 
Ford— Mr.  J.  McLure  Hamilton's  Account — Action  at  Antwerp  to  suppress 
Ford's  Edition — Mr.  Heinemann  publishes  “  The  Gentle  Art  "  for  Whistler 
— Summary  of  the  Book — Period  of  Unimportant  Quarrels 

CHAPTER  XXXV.  THE  TURN  OF  THE  TIDE.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-ONE  AND  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-TWO  295 

The  “  Carlyle  "  bought  by  the  Glasgow  Corporation — “  The  Mother  "  bought 
for  the  Luxembourg — Ehe  Exhibition  at  the  Goupil  Gallery — Mr.  D.  Croal 
Thomson's  Account — Success  of  the  Exhibition — The  Catalogue — Com¬ 
missions — Demand  for  his  Pictures — Mr.  H.  S.  Theobald's  Reminiscences — 
Whistler's  Indignation  at  Sale  of  Early  Pictures  by  Old  Friends— Invited 
to  show  in  Chicago  Exhibition— Not  known  at  R.A. — Decorations  for 
Boston  Public  Library 

CHAPTER  XXXVI.  PARIS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  NINETY- 
TWO  AND  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-THREE  306 

Whistler  goes  to  Paris  to  live — Joseph  Pennell  with  him  there  in  1892  and 
1893 — Lithographs — Colour  Work — Studio  in  Rue  N otre-Dame-des-Champs 
— Apartment  in  the  Rue  du  Bac — Etchings  printed— Afternoons  in  the 
Garden — Day  at  Fontainebleau — Wills  signed — Mr.  E.  G.  Kennedy's 
Portrait — Rioting  in  the  Latin  Quarter 

CHAPTER  XXXVII.  PARIS  CONTINUED.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
NINETY-THREE  AND  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-FOUR  316 

Whistler's  Friends  in  Paris — Mr.  MacMonnies' ,  Mr.  Walter  Gay's,  and 
Mr.  Alexander  Harrison's  Reminiscences — Mr.  A.  J.  Eddy's  Portrait 
—Portraits  of  Women  begun 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII.  TRIALS  AND  GRIEFS.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-FOUR  TO  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SIX  323 

Du  Manner's  “  Trilby  " — Apology — Mrs.  Whistler's  Illness— The  Eden 
Trial — Whistler  Challenges  George  Moore — In  Lyme  Regis  and  London — 
Portraits  in  Lithography— Mr.  S.  R.  Crockett's  Account  of  the  Sittings  for  his 
Portrait — Mrs.  Whistler's  Death — New  Will 
xii 


Contents 


PAGE 


CHAPTER  XXXIX.  ALONE.  THE  YEAR  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SIX  323 
Work  and  Little  Journeys— Mr.  E.  G.  Kennedy's  Reminiscences— Evenings 
with  Whistler— Visit  to  the  National  Gallery— Whistler  goes  to  live  with 
Mr.  Heinemann  at  Whitehall  Court — Mr.  Henry  Savage  Landor  Mr. 
Edmund  Heinemann— Eden  Affair— Last  Meeting  with  Sir  Seymour  Haden 
— Christmas  at  Bournemouth 

CHAPTER  XL.  THE  LITHOGRAPH  CASE.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
NINETY-SIX  AND  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SEVEN  342 

Mr.  Walter  Sickert's  Article  in  “  Saturday  Review  "—Joseph  Pennell  sues 
him  for  Libel— Whistler  the  Principal  Witness— In  the  Witness-box  under 
Cross-examination — Verdict — Whistler's  P leasure 

CHAPTER  XLI.  THE  END  OF  THE  EDEN  CASE.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SEVEN  TO  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-NINE  346 

M.  Boldini's  Portrait  of  Whistler— In  London— V isits  to  Hampton— 
Journey  to  Dieppe— The  Eden  Case  in  the  Cour  de  Cassation— Whistler's 
Triumph—' “  The  Baronet  and  the  Butterfly"— The  Whistler  Syndicate: 
Company  of  the  Butterfly 

CHAPTER  XLII.  BETWEEN  LONDON  AND  PARIS.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SEVEN  TO  NINETEEN  HUNDRED  353 

Illness  in  Paris— Fever  of  Work— Portrait  of  Mr.  George  Vanderbilt- 
Other  Portraits  and  Models — Pictures  of  Children  Nudes  Pastels 
Spanish  War— Journey  to  Italy— “  Best  Man"  at  Mr.  Heinemann's 
Wedding— Impressions  of  Rome— Mr.  Kerr-Lawson' s  Account  of  his  Stay 
in  Florence — Winter  in  Paris — Loneliness — Meetings  with  old  Student 
Friends— Dr.  Whistler's  Death— Dinner  at  Mr.  Heinemann's— Mr.  Arthur 
Symons'  Impressions  of  Whistler 

CHAPTER  XLIII.  THE  INTERNATIONAL.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SEVEN  TO  NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND 
THREE  .  365 

The  International  Society  of  Sculptors,  Painters,  and  Gravers— Whistler 
elected  First  President— Activity  of  his  Interest— First  Exhibition  at 
Knightsbridge— Second  Exhibition— Difficulties— Third  Exhibition  at 
the  Royal  Institute — Exhibitions  on  the  Continent  and  in  America 
Whistler's  Presidency  ends  only  with  Death 
CHAPTER  XL IV.  THE  ACADEMIE  CARMEN.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-EIGHT  TO  NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND  ONE  373 
School  opened  in  the  Passage  Stanislas,  Pans — Whistler  and  Mr.  Freclenck 
MacMonnies  propose  to  visit  it— History  of  the  School  written,  at  Whistler's 
request,  by  Mrs.  Clifford  Addams — Her  Account — His  Methods— His 
Advice — His  Palette — Misunderstandings— Mrs .  Addams  apprenticed  to 
Whistler — Men's  Class  discontinued — Third  Tear  begins  with  Woman's 
Class  alone— School  closed— Mr.  Clifford  Addams  made  an  Apprentice— 

Mr.  MacMonnies '  Account — Comparison  with  Other  Art  Schools 


Contents 

CHAPTER  XLV.  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  END.  THE  YEAR 
NINETEEN  HUNDRED 

Whistler  authorises  J.  and  E.  R.  Pennell  to  write  his  Life  and  Mr. 
Heinemann  to  publish  it — Whistler  gives  his  Reminiscences — Photo¬ 
graphing  begun  in  Studio — Paris  Universal  Exhibition — Interest  in  the 
Boer  War — The  “ Island ”  and  the  “  Islanders”— The  Pekin  Massacre 
and  Blue  Pots—Domburg — Visit  to  Ireland — Sir  Walter  Armstrongs 
Reminiscences  of  Whistler  in  Dublin — Irritation  with  Critics  of  his 
Pictures  infParis — Increasing  Ill-health  in  the  Autumn — Serious  Illness 
— Starts  for  the  South 

CHAPTER  XLVI.  IN  SEARCH  OF  HEALTH.  THE  YEARS 
NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND  ONE  AND  NINETEEN  HUNDRED 
AND  TWO 

T angier— Algiers — Marseilles — Ajaccio — Winter  in  Corsica — V isit  from 
Mr.  Heinemann — Dominoes — Rests  for  the  First  T ime — Return  to  London 
in  the  Spring — -Work  in  the  Summer — Illness  in  the  Autumn — Bath — 
No.  74  Cheyne  Walk — Annoyances — Journey  to  Holland — Dangerous  Illness 
in  The  Hague — Mr.  G.  SautePs  Account  of  his  Last  Visit  to  Franz  Hals 
at  Haarlem 

CHAPTER  XL  VII.  THE  END.  THE  YEARS  NINETEEN 
HUNDRED  AND  TWO  AND  NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND 
THREE 

Return  to  No.  74  Cheyne  Walk — Illness — Gradual  Decline — W ork 
Portraits— Prints— Exhibition  of  Silver — Degree  of  LL.D.  from  Glasgow 
University— St.  Louis  Exposition — Worries — Last  Weeks — Death — 
Funeral— Grave 

INDEX 


xiv 


TAOE 

389 


4°3 


4*9 


435 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

G.,  after  an  etching ,  refers  to  the  Grolier  Club  Catalogue  of  Whistler's 
Etchings ,  1910 

W.,  after  a  lithograph ,  refers  to  Mr.  T.  R.  Way's  Catalogue  of  Whistler's 
Lithographs ,  1905 

Portrait  of  the  Artist  ( By  Himself)  (Oil) 

In  the  George  McCulloch  Collection 

The  Mother — Arrangement  in  Grey  and  Black  ( Oil) 

In  the  Musee  du  Luxembourg 

Portrait  of  Whistler  as  a  Boy  (By  Sir  William  Box  all)  (Oil) 


The  Two  Brothers  (Miniature)  16 

Lent  by  Miss  Emma  Palmer  ;  formerly  in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  George 
D.  Stanton  and  Miss  Emma  W.  Palmer 

Bibi  Lalouette  (Etching.  G.  51)  20 

La  M£re  Gerard  (Oil)  24 

In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  A.  C.  Swinburne 

Head  of  an  Old  Man  Smoking  (Oil)  28 

In  the  Musee  du  Luxembourg 

Street  at  Saverne  (Etching.  G.  19)  32 

From  the  “  French  Set  ” 

Sketches  of  the  Journey  to  Alsace  (Pen  Drawings)  36 

Portrait  of  Whistler  (Etching.  G.  54)  40 

Portrait  of  Whistler  in  the  Big  Hat  (Oil)  44 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 

Drouet  (Etching.  G.  55)  48 

At  the  Piano  (Oil)  52 

In  the  possession  of  Edmund  Davis,  Esq. 

Wapping  (Oil)  56 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Hutton 

Rotherhithe  (Etching.  G.  66)  60 

From  the  “  Sixteen  Etchings  ” 

The  Thames  in  Ice,  the  Twenty-fifth  of  December  i860  ( Oil)  64 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 

The  Music  Room — Harmony  in  Green  and  Rose  (Oil)  68 

In  the  possession  of  Colonel  F.  Hecker 


Frontispiece 
E  oface  page 
4 

12 


xv 


List  of  Illustrations 


To  face  page 

Annie  Haden  ( Dry-Point .  G.  62) 

Jo  ( Dry-Point .  G.  77)  ~<J 

The  White  Girl— Symphony  in  White,  No.  I.  (Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  J.  H.  Whittemore,  Esq. 

The  Forge  (Dry-Point.  G.  68)  ^4 

From  the  “  Sixteen  Etchings  ” 

The  Coast  of  Brittany— Alone  with  the  Tide  (Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  Ross  Winans,  Esq. 

The  Blue  Wave  (Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  A.  A.  Pope,  Esq. 

The  Morning  before  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  (IV ood-Engraving  92 

from  “  Once  a  Week,”  vol  vii.  p.  210) 

The  Last  of  Old  Westminster  (Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  A.  A.  Pope,  Esq. 

Weary  (Dry-Point.  G.  92)  100 

Study  in  Chalk  for  the  Same 

In  the  possession  of  B.  B.  MacGeorge,  Esq. 

Portrait  of  Whistler  (By  Himself)  (Chalk  Drawing )  ■I04 

In  the  possession  of  Thomas  Way,  Esq. 

The  Balcony— Harmony  in  Flesh-Colour  and  Green  (Oil)  108 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 

The  Lange  Leizen  of  the  Six  Marks— Purple  and  Rose  (Oil)  '  112 

In  the  possession  of  J.  G.  Johnson,  Esq. 

La  Princesse  du  Pays  de  la  Porcelaine — Rose  and  Silver  (Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 

Variations  in  Violet  and  Green  (Oil)  120 

In  the  possession  of  Sir  Charles  McLaren,  Bart. 

The  Little  White  Girl — Symphony  in  White,  No.  II.  (Oil)  I24 

In  the  possession  of  Arthur  Studd,  Esq. 

-  „  Q 

Portrait  of  Dr.  Whistler  (Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  Burton  Mansfield,  Esq. 

Valparaiso  Bay-^-Nocturne  :  Blue  and  Gold  (Oil)  I32 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 

Symphony  in  White,  No.  III.  (Oil)  *3^ 

In  the  possession  of  Edmund  Davis,  Esq. 

The  Three  Figures — Pink  and  Grey  (Oil)  I4° 

In  the  possession  of  Alfred  Chapman,  Esq. 

Sea  Beach  with  Figures  (Study  for  the  Six  Projects)  (Pastel)  *44 


xv  1 


List  of  Illustrations 

To  jace  page 

Nocturne — Blue  and  Silver  (0/7)  H8 

In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  Mrs.  F.  R.  Leyland 

Nocturne — Blue  and  Green  (Oil)  x52 

In  the  possession  of  W.  C.  Alexander,  Esq. 

Whistler’s  Table  Palette  (Photograph)  156 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Newmarch 

Portrait  of  Thomas  Carlyle — Arrangement  in  Grey  and  Black, 

No.  II.  (Oil)  160 

In  the  Corporation  Art  Gallery,  Glasgow 

Portrait  of  Cicely  Henrietta,  Miss  Alexander — Harmony  in  Grey  and 
Green  (Oil)  I^+ 

In  the  possession  of  W.  C.  Alexander,  Esq. 

Portrait  of  F.  R.  Leyland — Arrangement  in  Black  (Oil)  168 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 

Portrait  of  Mrs.  F.  R.  Leyland — Symphony  in  Flesh-Colour  and 
Pink  (Oil)  17z 

In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  Mrs.  F.  R.  Leyland 

Portrait  of  Miss  Leyland  (Pastel)  l7& 

In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  Mrs.  F.  R.  Leyland 

Fanny  Leyland  (Study  for  the  Etching.  G.  108)  (Pencil  Sketch)  180 

In  the  possession  of  J.  H.  Wrenn,  Esq. 

Portrait  of  Mrs.  Louis  Huth— Arrangement  in  Black,  No.  II.  (Oil)  184 
In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  the  Family 

Maud  Standing  (Etching.  G.  114)  I92 

Whistler  in  his  Studio  (Oil)  l9& 

In  the  possession  of  Douglas  Freshfield,  Esq. 

Portrait  of  Sir  Henry  Irving  as  Philip  II.  of  Spain — Arrangement 
in  Black,  No.  III.  (Oil)  200 

In  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  New  York 

Portrait  of  Sir  Henry  Cole  (Oil)  (Destroyed)  204 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  Pickford  R.  Waller,  Esq. 

Portrait  of  Miss  Rosa  Corder — Arrangement  in  Black  and  Brown 

(Oil)  208 

In  the  possession  of  Richard  A.  Canfield,  Esq. 

The  Peacock  Room  (Photograph)  212 

Study  (Lithotint.  W .  2)  216 

From  a  print  lent  by  T.  R.  Way,  Esq. 

xvii 


List  of  Illustrations 


To  face  page 

Drawing  in  Wash  for  “  A  Catalogue  of  Blue  and  White  Nankin 
Porcelain,  forming  the  Collection  of  Sir  Henry  Thompson.” 
London  :  Ellis  and  White.  1878  220 

In  the  possession  of  Pickford  R.  Waller,  Esq. 

Tall  Bridge  {Lithograph.  W.  9)  224 

From  a  print  lent  by  T.  R.  Way,  Esq. 

Nocturne  {Litbotint.  W.  5)  228 

From  “  Notes  ”  published  by  Goupil 
From  a  print  lent  by  T.  R.  Way,  Esq. 

The  Falling  Rocket- — Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold  ( Oil)  232 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  Untermeyer 

Old  Battersea  Bridge — Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Gold  (Oil)  236 

In  the  National  Gallery  of  British  Art,  Tate  Gallery 

Under  a  Venetian  Bridge  {Pastel)  240 

The  Doorway  {Etching.  G.  188)  244 

From  the  “  First  Venice  Set  ” 

By  the  permission  of  the  Fine  Art  Society 

The  Bridge  {Etching.  G.  204)  248 

From  the  “  Second  Venice  Set  ” 

By  the  permission  of  Messrs.  Dowdeswell 

The  Beggars  {Etching.  G.  194)  252 

From  the  “  First  Venice  Set  ” 

By  permission  of  the  Fine  Art  Society 

The  Rialto  {Etching.  G.  21 1)  256 

From  the  “  Second  Venice  Set  ” 

By  the  permission  of  Messrs.  Dowdeswell 

The  Salute,  Venice  {Water-Colour)  260 

In  the  possession  of  B.  B.  MacGeorge,  Esq. 

Portraits  of  Maud  {Oil)  {Destroyed)  264 

From  photographs  lent  by  Pickford  R.  Waller,  Esq. 

Portrait  of  Lady  Mexjx — Harmony  in  Pink  and  Grey  {Oil)  268 

In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  Lady  Meux 

Portrait  of  Lady  Meux  in  Sables  {Third  Portrait)  {Destroyed) 

{Sketch  in  Pen  and  Wash)  27^ 

Lent  by  Walter  Dowdeswell,  Esq. 

Portrait  of  Miss  Maud  Waller — The  Blue  Girl  {Oil)  {Destroyed)  300 
From  a  photograph  lent  by  Mortimer  Menpes,  Esq. 

The  Yellow  Buskin — Arrangement  in  Black  {Oil) 

In  the  Wilstach  Collection,  Memorial  Hall,  Philadelphia 

xviii 


List  of  Illustrations 


To  face  page 

Portrait  of  M.  Theodore  Duret— Arrangement  in  Flesh-Colour  and 
Pink  ( Oil)  308 

In  the  possession  of  M.  Theodore  Duret 

Portrait  of  Pablo  Sarasate-— Arrangement  in  Black  (Oil)  312 

In  the  Carnegie  Institute,  Pittsburgh 

Portrait  of  Lady  Colin  Campbell — Harmony  in  White  and  Ivory 
(Oil)  (Destroyed)  3Ig 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  Pickford  R.  Waller,  Esq. 


Jubilee  Memorial  from  the  Society  of  British  Artists  to  Queen 
Victoria,  1887  (Illumination) 

In  the  Royal  Collection  at  Windsor 

Illustration  to  Little  Johannes 

Portrait  of  a  Lady  (Drawings  on  Wood) 

In  the  possession  of  Joseph  Pennell,  Esq. 

The  Beach  (Water-Colour) 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Knowles 


320 

324 


328 


The  Convalescent  (Water-Colour) 

In  the  possession  of  Dr.  J.  W.  MacIntyre 
Annabel  Lee  (Pastel) 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 

Whistler  at  his  Printing  Press  in  the  Studio, 

Rue  N otre-Dame-des-Champs,  Paris 
From  a  photograph  by  M.  Dornac 

Portrait  of  Miss  Kinsella— The  Iris,  Rose  and  Green  (Oil) 
In  the  possession  of  Miss  Kinsella 

The  Smith,  Passage  du  Dragon  (Lithograph.  W .  73) 

The  Master  Smith  of  Lyme  Regis  (Oil) 

In  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts 


332 

336 

34° 

3+4 

348 

352 


The  Thames  (Lithotint.  W.  125) 

Firelight— Joseph  Pennell,  No.  I.  (Lithograph.  W.  104) 
From  “Lithography  and  Lithographers ” 

By  the  permission  of  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  Esq. 

Shop  Window  at  Dieppe  (Water-Colour) 

Study  in  Brown  (Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  the  Baroness  de  Meyer 

Study  of  the  Nude  (Pen  Drawing) 

In  the  possession  of  William  Heinemann,  Esq. 

Rose  and  Gold— Little  Lady  Sophie  of  Soho  (Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 


356 

360 


364 

368 

372 

376 


List  of  Illustrations 

The  Little  Blue  Bonnet— Blue  and  Coral  {Oil) 

Formerly  in  the  possession  of  Wm.  Heinemann,  Esq. 

Model  with  Flowers  ( Pastel)  _ 

In  the  possession  of  J .  P .  Heseltine,  Esq. 

Seated  Figure  (j Pastel ) 

In  the  possession  of  Thomas  Way,  Esq. 

Girl  with  a  Red  Feather  (Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  J.  Staats  Forbes 

Lillie  in  Our  Alley— Brown  and  Gold  (Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  j.  j.  Cowan,  Esq. 

Sea  (i Water-Colour )  . 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  A.  M.  Jarvis 

A  Freshening  Breeze  ( Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  J.  S.  Ure,  Esq. 

The  Sea,  Pourville  ( Oil) 

In  the  possession  of  A.  A.  Hannay,  Esq. 

The  Fur  Jacket— Arrangement  in  Black  and  Brown  (Oil) 

Picture  in  Progress :  .  ,  „  ,  „  ..  v 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  Pickford  R.  Waller,  Esq. 

•  Completed  Picture : 

In  the  Worcester  Museum,  Massachusetts 


To  face  page 
380 

384 

388 


392 

398 

4°4 

410 

416 


428 


XX 


CHAPTER  I  :  THE  WHISTLER  FAMILY.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  THIRTY-FOUR  TO  EIGHTEEN  FORTY-THREE. 

James  Abbott  McNeill  Whistler  was  born  on  July  io,  1834,  at 
Lowell,  Massachusetts,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 

Whistler,  in  the  witness-box  during  the  suit  he  brought  against 
Ruskin  in  1878,  gave  St.  Petersburg  as  his  birthplace --or  the  reporters 
did— and  he  never  denied  it.  Baltimore  was  given  by  M.  Theodore 
Duret  in  the  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts  (April  1881),  and  M.  Duret’s 
mistake,  since  corrected  by  him,  has  been  many  times  repeated. 
Mrs.  Livermore,  who  knew  Whistler  as  a  child  at  Lowell,  asked  him 
why  he  did  not  contradict  this.  His  answer  was  :  “  If  any  one  likes 
to  think  I  was  born  in  Baltimore,  why  should  I  deny  it  ?  It  is  of 
no  consequence  to  me  !  ”  On  entering  West  Point  he  stated  that 
Massachusetts  was  his  place  of  birth.  But,  as  a  rule,  he  met  any  one 
indiscreet  enough  to  question  him  on  the  subject  as  he  did  the  American 
who  came  up  to  him  one  evening  in  the  Carlton  Hotel,  London,  and 
by  way  of  introduction  said,  “  You  know,  Mr.  Whistler,  we  were 
both  born  at  Lowell,  and  at  very  much  the  same  time.  There  is  only 
the  difference  of  a  year— you  are  sixty-seven  and  I  am  sixty-eight.” 

“  And  I  told  him,”  said  Whistler,  from  whom  we  had  the  story  the 
next  day,  Very  charming!  And  so  you  are  sixty-eight  and  were 
born  at  Lowell,  Massachusetts  !  Most  interesting,  no  doubt,  and 
as  you  please  !  But  I  shall  be  born  when  and  where  I  want,  and 
I  do  not  choose  to  be  born  at  Lowell,  and  I  refuse  to  be  sixty- 
seven  ! 5  ” 

Whistler  was  christened  at  St.  Anne’s  Church,  Lowell,  November  9j 
1834.  “  Baptized,  James  Abbott,  infant  son  of  George  Washington 

and  Anna  Mathilda  Whistler  :  Sponsors,  the  parents.  Signed, 
T.  Edson  ”  ;  so  it  is  recorded  in  the  church  register.  He  was  named 
after  James  Abbott,  of  Detroit,  who  had  married  his  father’s  elder 
sister,  Sarah  Whistler.  McNeill  (his  mother’s  name)  was  added 
shortly  after  he  entered  West  Point.  Abbott  he  always  preserved 
for  legal  and  official  documents.  But,  eventually,  he  dropped  it  for 
other  purposes,  “  J.  A.  M.”  pleasing  him  no  better  than  “  J.  A.  W.,” 
1834]  A  I 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

and  he  signed  himself  “  James  McNeill  Whistler  ”  or  “  J.  M.  N. 
Whistler.” 

The  Rev.  Rose  Fuller  Whistler,  in  his  Annals  oj  an  English  Family 
(1887),  says  that  Joha  le  Wistler  de  Westhannye  (1272-1307)  was  the 
founder  of  the  family.  Most  of  the  Whistlers  lived  in  Goring, 
Whitchurch,  or  Oxford,  and  are  buried  in  many  a  church  and  church¬ 
yard  of  the  Thames  Valley.  Brasses  and  tablets  to  the  memory  of 
several  are  in  the  church  of  St.  Mary  at  Goring  :  one  to  “  Hugh 
Whistler,  the  son  of  Master  John  Whistler  of  Goring,  who  departed 
this  life  the  17  Day  of  Januarie  Anno  Dominie  1675  being  aged  216 
years  an  amazing  statement,  but  there  it  is  in  the  parish  church, 
durable  as  brass  can  make  it,  and  it  would  have  delighted  Whistler. 
The  solemn  antiquary,  however,  has  decided  that  the  21  is  only  a  badly 
cut  4.  This  remarkable  ancestor  figures  as  a  family  ghost  at  Gate- 
hampton,  where  he  is  said  to  have  been  buried  with  his  money  and 
where  he  still  walks,  guarding  the  treasure  he  lived  so  many  years  to 
gather.  The  position  of  the  Whistlers  entitled  them  to  a  coat  of 
arms,  described  in  the  Harleian  MSS.,  No.  1556,  and  thus  in  Gwillim’ s 
Heraldry  :  “  Gules,  five  mascles,  in  bend  between  two  Talbots  passant 
argent  ”  ;  and  the  motto  “  Forward.” 

The  men  were  mostly  soldiers  and  parsons.  A  few  made  names 
for  themselves.  The  shield  of  Gabriel  Whistler,  of  Combe,  Sussex, 
is  one  of  six  carved  in  King’s  College  Chapel,  Cambridge.  Anthony 
Whistler,  poet,  friend  of  Shenstone,  belonged  to  the  Whitchurch 
family.  Dr.  Daniel  Whistler  (1619-1684),  of  the  Essex  branch,  was 
a  Fellow  of  Merton,  an  original  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  a  member 
and  afterwards  President  of  the  College  of  Physicians,  the  friend  of 
Evelyn  and  Pepys.  Evelyn  often  met  him  in  “select  companie  ”  at 
supper,  and  once  “  Din’d  at  Dr.  Whistler’s  at  the  Physicians  Colledge,” 
and  found  him  not  only  learned  but  “  the  most  facetious  man  in 
nature,”  and  so  the  legitimate  ancestor  of  Whistler.  Pepys,  who  also 
dined  and  supped  with  him  many  times,  pronounced  him  “  good 
company  and  a  very  ingenious  man.”  He  fell  under  a  cloud  with 
the  officials  of  the  College  of  Physicians,  and  his  portrait  has  been 
consigned  to  a  back  stairway  of  the  Hall  in  Pall  Mall.  In  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century  Ralph  Whistler,  under  the  Salters’  Company  of 
London,  was  one  of  the  English  colonisers  of  Ulster,  and  Francis 
i  [1272-1684 


The  Whistler  Family 

Whistler,  under  the  Second  Charter,  was  a  settler  of  Virginia.  When 
Whistler  saw  the  name  “  Francis  Whistler,  Gentleman,”  in  the 
Genesis  oj  the  United  States ,  he  said  to  us,  “  There  is  an  ancestor, 
with  the  hall-mark  F.F.V.  [First  Families  of  Virginia],  who  tickles 
my  American  snobbery,  and  washes  out  the  taint  of  Lowell.” 

The  American  Whistlers  are  descended  from  John  Whistler  of  the 
Irish  branch.  In  his  youth  he  ran  away  and  enlisted.  Sir  Kensington 
Whistler,  an  English  cousin,  was  an  officer  in  the  same  regiment,  and 
objected  to  having  a  relative  in  the  ranks.  John  Whistler,  therefore, 
was  transferred  to  another  regiment  starting  for  the  American  colonies. 
He  arrived  in  time  to  surrender  at  Saratoga  with  Burgoyne,  October  17, 
1777.  He  went  back  to  England,  received  his  discharge,  eloped  with 
Anna,  daughter  of  Sir  Edward  Bishop  or  Bischopp,  and,  returning 
to  America,  settled  at  Hagerstown,  Maryland.  He  again  enlisted, 
this  time  in  the  United  States  army.  He  rose  to  the  brevet  rank 
of  major  and  served  in  the  war  of  1812  against  Great  Britain.  He 
was  stationed  at  Fort  Dearborn,  which  he  helped  to  build,  and  Fort 
Wayne.  According  to  Mr.  A.  J.  Eddy  [Recollections  and  Impressions 
of  Whistler),  Whistler  once  said  to  a  visitor  from  Chicago  : 

“  Chicago,  dear  me,  what  a  wonderful  place  !  I  really  ought 
to  visit  it  some  day  ;  for,  you  know,  my  grandfather  founded  the 
city  and  my  uncle  was  the  last  commander  of  Fort  Dearborn  !  ” 

In  1815,  upon  the  reduction  of  the  army,  Major  John  Whistler 
was  retired.  He  died  in  1817,  at  Bellefontaine,  Missouri.  Of  his 
fifteen  children,  three  sons  are  remembered  as  soldiers,  and  three 
daughters  married  army  officers.  George  Washington,  the  most 
distinguished,  was  the  father  of  James  Abbott  McNeill  Whistler. 

George  Washington  Whistler  was  born  on  May  19,  1800,  at  Fort 
Wayne.  He  was  educated  mostly  at  Newport,  Kentucky  ;  and  from 
Kentucky,  when  a  little  over  fourteen,  he  received  his  appointment 
to  the  Military  Academy,  West  Point,  where  he  is  remembered  for 
his  gaiety.  Mr.  George  L.  Vose,  his  biographer,  and  others  tell  stories 
that  might  have  been  told  of  his  son.  One  is  of  some  breach  of 
discipline,  for  which  he  was  made  to  bestride  a  gun  on  the  campus. 
As  he  sat  there  he  saw,  coming  towards  him,  the  Miss  Swift  he  was 
before  long  to  marry.  Out  came  his  handkerchief,  and,  leaning  over 
the  gun,  he  set  to  work  cleaning  it  so  carefully  that  he  was  “  honoured, 
1684-1815]  3 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

not  disgraced,”  in  her  eyes.  He  was  number  one  in  drawing,  and 
his  playing  on  the  flute  won  him  the  nickname  “  Pipes.”  He 
graduated  on  July  i,  1819.  He  was  appointed  second  lieutenant 
in  the  First  Artillery,  and,  in  1829,  first  lieutenant  in  the  Second 
Artillery.  He  served  on  topographical  duty,  and  for  a  few  months 
he  was  assistant  professor  at  the  Academy.  There  was  not  much 
fighting  for  American  officers  of  his  generation.  But  railroads  were 
being  built,  and  so  few  were  the  civil  engineers  that  West  Point 
graduates  were  allowed  by  Government  to  work  for  private  corpo¬ 
rations,  and  he  was  employed  on  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad, 
the  Baltimore  and  Susquehanna,  and  the  Paterson  and  Hudson  River. 
For  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  he  went  to  England  in  1828  to  examine 
the  railway  system.  He  was  building  the  line  from  Stonington  to 
Providence,  when,  in  1833,  he  resigned  from  the  army  with  the  rank 
of  major,  to  carry  on  his  profession  as  a  civil  engineer. 

In  the  meanwhile  Major  Whistler  had  married  twice.  His  first 
wife  was  Mary  Swift,  daughter  of  Dr.  Foster  Swift,  of  the  United 
States  army.  She  left  three  children  :  George,  who  became  a  well- 
known  civil  engineer  ;  Joseph,  who  died  in  youth  ;  and  Deborah, 
Lady  Haden.  His  second  wife  was  Anna  Mathilda  McNeill,  daughter 
of  Dr.  Charles  Donald  McNeill,  of  Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  and 
sister  of  William  Gibbs  McNeill,  a  West  Point  classmate  and  an 
associate  in  Major  Whistler’s  engineering  work.  The  McNeills  were 
descended  from  the  McNeills  of  Skye.  Their  chief,  Donald,  emigrated 
with  sixty  of  his  clan  to  North  Carolina  in  1746,  and  bought  land  on 
Cape  Fear  River.  Charles  Donald  McNeill  was  his  grandson  and  was 
twice  married  ;  his  second  wife,  Martha  Kingsley,  was  the  mother 
of  Anna  Mathilda  McNeill,  who  became  Mrs.  George  Washington 
Whistler.  The  McNeills  were  related  by  marriage  to  the  Fairfaxes 
and  other  Virginia  families,  and  Whistler,  on  his  mother’s  side,  was 
the  Southerner  he  loved  to  call  himself. 

In  1834  Major  Whistler  accepted  the  post  of  engineer  of  locks 
and  canals  at  Lowell,  and  to  this  town  he  brought  his  family.  There, 
in  the  Paul  Moody  House  on  Worthen  Street,  James  McNeill  Whistler 
was  born,  and  the  house  is  now  a  Whistler  Memorial  Museum.  Two 
years  later  the  second  son,  William  Gibbs  McNeill,  was  born.  In 
1837  Major  Whistler  moved  to  Stonington,  Connecticut,  and  Miss 
4  ”  [1819-1837 


THE  MOTHER 

ARRANGEMENT  IN  GREY  AND  BLACK 

OIL 

In  the  Mus6e  du  Luxembourg 


■U  ik 


The  Whistler  Family 

Emma  W.  Palmer  and  Mrs.  Dr.  Stanton,  his  wife’s  nieces,  still  remember 
his  “  pleasant  house  on  Main  Street.”  It  is  said  that  he  had  a  chaise 
fitted  with  car  wheels  in  which  he  and  his  family  drove  every  Sunday 
on  the  tracks  to  church  at  Westerly ;  also  that  a  locomotive  named 
Whistler  was  in  use  on  the  road  until  recently.  He  was  consulted 
in  regard  to  many  new  lines,  among  them  the  Western  Railroad  of 
Massachusetts,  for  which  he  was  consulting  engineer  from  1836  to  1840. 
In  1840  he  was  made  chief  engineer,  and  he  removed  to  Springfield, 
Massachusetts,  where  he  lived  in  the  Ethan  Chapin  Homestead  on 
Chestnut  Street,  north  of  Edward  Street.  A  third  son,  Kirk  Booth, 
born  at  Stonington  in  1838,  died  at  Springfield  in  1842,  and  here  a 
fourth  son,  Charles  Donald,  was  born  in  1841. 

In  1842  Nicholas  I.  of  Russia  sent  a  commission,  under  Colonel 
Melnikoff,  round  Europe  and  to  America  to  find  the  best  method 
and  the  best  man  to  build  a  railroad  from  St.  Petersburg  to  Moscow, 
and  they  chose  for  this  work  the  American,  George  Washington 
Whistler.  The  honour  was  great  and  the  salary  large,  1-2,000  dollars 
a  year.  He  accepted,  and  started  for  Russia  in  Midsummer  1842, 
leaving  his  family  at  Stonington. 

The  life  of  a  child,  for  the  first  nine  years  or  so,  is  not  of  much 
interest  to  any  save  his  parents.  An  idea  can  be  formed  of  Whistler’s 
early  training.  His  father  was  a  West  Point  man,  with  all  that  is  fine 
in  the  West  Point  tradition.  Mrs.  Whistler,  described  as  “  one  of 
the  saints  upon  earth,”  was  as  strict  as  a  Puritan.  Dr.  Whistler — 
Willie — often  told  his  wife  of  the  dread  with  which  he  and  Jimmie 
looked  forward  to  Saturday  afternoon,  with  its  overhauling  of 
clothes,  emptying  of  pockets,  washing  of  heads,  putting  away  of 
toys,  and  preparation  for  Sunday,  when  the  Bible  was  the  only  book 
they  read.  Of  the  facts  of  his  childhood  there  are  few  to  record. 
Mrs.  Livermore  remembered  his  baby  beauty,  so  great  that  her  father 
used  to  say  “  it  was  enough  to  make  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  come  out  of 
his  grave  and  paint  Jemmie  asleep.”  In  his  younger  years  he  was 
called  Jimmie,  Jemmie,  Jamie,  James,  and  Jim,  and  we  use  these 
names  as  we  have  found  them  in  the  letters  written  to  us  and  the 
books  quoted.  Mrs.  Livermore  dwelt  on  the  child’s  beautiful  hands, 
“  which  belong  to  so  many  of  the  Whistlers — I  attribute  them  to  his 
Irish  blood.”  When  she  returned  to  Lowell  in  1836  from  the  Manor 
1837-1842]  5 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

School  at  York,  England,  Mrs.  Whistler’s  son,  Willie,  had  just  been 

born  : 

“As  soon  as  Mrs.  Whistler  was  strong  enough,  she  sent  for  me 
to  go  and  see  her  boy,  and  I  did  see  her  and  her  baby  in  bed  !  And 
then  I  asked,  *  Where  is  Jemmie,  of  whom  I  have  heard  so  much  ?  ’ 
She  replied,  ‘  He  was  in  the  room  a  short  time  since,  and  I  think  he 
must  be  here  still.’  So  I  went  softly  about  the  room  till  I  saw  a  very 
small  form  prostrate  and  at  full  length  on  the  shelf  under  the  dressing- 
table,  and  I  took  hold  of  an  arm  and  a  leg  and  placed  him  on  my  knee, 
and  then  said,  ‘  What  were  you  doing,  dear,  under  the  table  ?  ’  ‘  I’se 

drawrin’,’  and  in  one  very  beautiful  little  hand  he  held  the  paper,  in 
the  other  the  pencil.” 

The  pencil  drawings  which  we  have  seen,  owned  by  Mrs.  Livermore 
are  curiously  firm  and  strong  for  a  child  of  four. 


CHAPTER  II :  IN  RUSSIA.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  FORTY- 
THREE  TO  EIGHTEEN  FORTY-NINE. 

In  1843,  when  Whistler  was  nine  years  old,  Major  Whistler  sent  for  his 
wife  and  children.  Mrs.  Whistler  sailed  from  Boston  in  tfie  Arcadia, 
August  12,  1843,  taking  with  her  Deborah  and  the  three  boys,  James, 
William,  and  Charles.  George  Whistler,  Major  Whistler’s  eldest  son, 
and  her  “good  maid  Mary”  went  with  them.  The  story  of  their 
journey  and  their  life  in  Russia  is  recorded  in  Mrs.  Whistler  s  journal. 

They  arrived  at  Liverpool  on  the  29th  of  the  same  month.  Mrs. 
Whistler’s  two  half-sisters,  Mrs.  William  Winstanley  and  Miss  Alicia 
McNeill,  lived  at  Preston,  and  there  they  stayed  a  fortnight.  Then, 
after  a  few  days  in  London,  they  sailed  for  Hamburg. 

There  was  no  railroad  from  Hamburg,  so  they  drove  by  carriage 
to  Lubeck,  by  stage  to  Travemiinde,  where  they  took  the  steamer 
Alexandra  for  St.  Petersburg,  and  George  Whistler  left  them.  Between 
Travemiinde  and  Cronstadt,  Charles,  the  youngest  child,  fell  ill  of  sea¬ 
sickness  and  died  within  a  day.  There  was  just  time  to  bury  him  at  Cron¬ 
stadt-— temporarily  ;  he  was  afterwards  buried  at  Stonington— and  his 
death  saddened  the  meeting  between.  Major  Whistler  and  his  wife 
and  children. 

6 


[1843 


In  Russia 


Mrs.  Whistler  objected  to  hotels  and  to  boarding,  and  a  house 
was  found  in  the  Galernaya.  She  did  her  best  to  make  it  not  only 
a  comfortable,  but  an  American  home,  for  Major  Whistler’s  attachment 
to  his  native  land,  she  said,  was  so  strong  as  to  be  almost  a  religious 
sentiment.  Their  food  was  American,  American  holidays  were  kept 
in  American  fashion.  Many  of  their  friends  were  Americans.  Major 
Whistler  was  nominally  consulting  engineer  to  Colonel  Melnikoff, 
but  actually  in  charge  of  the  construction  and  equipment  of  the  line, 
and  as  the  material  was  supplied  by  the  firm  of  Winans  of  Baltimore, 
Mr.  Winans  and  his  partners,  Messrs.  Harrison  and  Eastwick,  of 
Philadelphia,  were  in  Russia  with  their  families. 

Mrs.  Whistler’s  strictness  did  not  mean  opposition  to  pleasure. 
Yet  at  times  she  became  afraid  that  her  boys  were  not  “  keeping  to 
the  straight  and  narrow  way.”  There  were  evenings  of  illuminations 
that  put  ofi  bedtime  ;  there  were  afternoons  of  skating  and  coasting  ; 
Christmas  gaieties,  with  Christmas  dinners  of  roast  turkey  and  pumpkin 
pie  ;  visits  to  American  friends  ;  parties  at  home,  when  the  two 
boys  “  behaved  like  gentlemen,  and  their  father  commended  them 
upon  it  ”  ;  there  were  presents  of  guns  from  the  father,  returning 
from  long  absences  on  the  road  ;  there  were  dancing  lessons,  which 
Jemmie  would  have  done  anything  rather  than  miss. 

Whistler  as  a  boy  was  exactly  what  those  who  knew  him  as  a  man 
would  expect ;  gay  and  bright,  absorbed  in  his  work  when  that  work 
was  art,  brave  and  fearless,  selfish  if  selfishness  is  another  name  for 
ambition,  considerate  and  kindly,  above  all  to  his  mother.  The  boy, 
like  the  man,  was  delightful  to  those  who  understood  him  ;  startling, 

“  alarming,”  to  those  who  did  not. 

Mrs.  Whistler’s  journal  soon  becomes  extremely  interesting  : 

March  29  (1844).  “  I  must  not  omit  recording  our  visiting  the 

Gastinnoi  to-day  in  anticipation  of  Palm  Sunday.  Our  two  boys 
were  most  excited,  Jemmie’s  animation  roused  the  wonder  of  many, 
for  even  in  crowds  here  such  decorum  and  gravity  prevails  that  it  must 
be  surprising  when  there  is  any  ebullition  of  joy.” 

April  22  (1844).  “  Jemmie  is  confined  to  his  bed  with  a  mustard 
plaster  on  his  throat ;  he  has  been  very  poorly  since  the  thawing 
season  commenced,  soon  becoming  overheated,  takes  cold  ;  when  he 
complained  of  pain  first  in  his  shoulder,  then  in  his  side,  my  fears  of 
1844]  7 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

a  return  of  last  year’s  attack  made  me  tremble,  and  when  I  gaze  upon 
his  pale  face  sleeping,  contrasted  to  Willie’s  round  cheeks,  my  heart 
is  full ;  our  dear  James  said  to  me  the  other  day,  so  touchingly,  ‘  Oh, 
I  am  sorry  the  Emperor  ever  asked  father  to  come  to  Russia,  but  if  I 
had  the  boys  here,  I  should  not  feel  so  impatient  to  get  back  to 
Stonington,’  yet  I  cannot  think  the  climate  here  affects  his  health  ; 
Willie  never  was  as  stout  in  his  native  land,  and  James  looks  better 
than  when  we  brought  him  here.  At  eight  o’clock  I  am  often  at  my 
reading  or  sewing  without  a  candle,  and  I  cannot  persuade  James  to 
put  up  his  drawing  and  go  to  bed  while  it  is  light.” 

The  journal  explains  that  Whistler  as  a  boy  suffered  from  severe 
rheumatic  attacks  that  added  to  the  weakness  of  his  heart,  the  eventual 
cause  of  his  death.  Major  and  Mrs.  Whistler  rented  a  country-house 
on  the  Peterhoff  Road  in  the  spring  of  1844.  There  is  an  account  of 
a  day  at  Tsarskoe  Selo,  when  Colonel  Todd,  American  Minister  to 
Russia,  showed  them  the  Palace  : 

May  6  (1844).  “  Rode  to  the  station,  and  took  the  cars  upon  the 

only  railroad  in  Russia,  which  took  us  the  twenty  versts  to  the  pretty 
town.  It  would  be  ungenerous  in  me  to  remark  how  inferior  the 
railroad,  cars,  &c.,  seemed  to  us  Americans.  The  boys  were  delighted 
with  it  all.  Jemmie  wished  he  could  stay  to  examine  the  fine  pictures 
and  know  who  painted  them,  but  as  I  returned  through  the  grounds 
I  asked  him  if  he  should  wish  to  be  a  grand  duke  and  own  it  all  for 
playgrounds  :  he  decided  there  could  be  no  freedom  with  a  footman 
at  his  heels.” 

July  1  (1844).  “  .  .  .  I  went  with  Willie  to  do  some  shopping 

in  the  Nevski.  He  is  rather  less  excitable  than  Jemmie,  and  therefore 
more  tractable.  They  each  can  make  their  wants  known  in  Russ., 
but  I  prefer  this  gentlest  of  my  dear  boys  to  go  with  me.  We  had 
hardly  reached  home  when  a  tremendous  shower  came  up,  and  Jemmie 
and  a  friend,  who  had  been  out  in  a  boat  on  a  canal  at  the  end  of  our 
avenue,  got  well  drenched.  Just  as  we  were  seated  at  tea,  a  carriage 
drove  up  and  Mr.  Miller  entered,  introducing  Sir  William  Allen, 
the  great  Scotch  artist,  of  whom  we  have  heard  lately,  who  has  come 
to  St.  Petersburg  to  revive  on  canvas  some  of  the  most  striking  events 
from  the  life  of  Peter  the  Great.  They  had  been  to  the  monastery 
to  listen  to  the  chanting  at  vespers  in  the  Greek  chapel.  Mr.  Miller 
8  [1844 


In  Russia 


congratulated  his  companion  on  being  in  the  nick  of  time  for  our 
excellent  home-made  bread  and  fresh  butter,  but,  above  all,  the 
refreshment  of  a  good  cup  of  tea.  His  chat  then  turned  upon  the 
subject  of  Sir  William  Allen’s  painting  of  Peter  the  Great  teaching 
the  mujiks  to  make  ships.  This  made  Jemmie’s  eyes  express  so  much 
interest  that  his  love  for  art  was  discovered,  and  Sir  William  must 
needs  see  his  attempts.  When  my  boys  had  said  good  night,  the 
great  artist  remarked  to  me,  ‘  Your  little  boy  has  uncommon  genius, 
but  do  not  urge  him  beyond  his  inclination.’  I  told  him  his  gift  had 
only  been  cultivated  as  an  amusement,  and  that  I  was  obliged  to 
interfere,  or  his  application  would  confine  him  more  than  we 
approved.” 

Of  these  attempts  there  remain  few  examples.  One  is  the  portrait 
of  his  aunt  Alicia  McNeill,  who  visited  them  in  Russia  in  1844,  sent 
to  Mrs.  Palmer  at  Stonington,  with  the  inscription  :  “  James  to  Aunt 
Kate.”  In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Livermore,  written  in  French,  when  he 
was  ten  or  eleven,  “  he  enclosed  some  pretty  pen-and-ink  drawings, 
each  on  a  separate  bit  of  paper,  and  each  surrounded  by  a  frame  of  his 
own  designing.”  He  told  us  he  could  remember  wonderful  things 
he  had  done  during  the  years  in  Russia.  Once,  he  said,  when  on  a 
holiday  in  London  with  his  father,  he  was  not  well,  and  was  given  a 
hot  foot-bath,  and  he  could  never  forget  how  he  sat  looking  at  his  foot, 
and  then  got  paper  and  colours  and  set  to  work  to  make  a  study  of  it, 

“  and  in  Russia,”  he  added,  “  I  was  always  doing  that  sort  of  thing.” 

July  4  (1844).  “  I  have  given  my  boys  holiday  to  celebrate  the 

Independence  of  their  country.  .  .  .  This  morning  Jemmie  began 
relating  anecdotes  from  the  life  of  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  and  rather 
upbraided  me  that  I  could  not  let  him  do  as  that  monarch  had  done 
at  seven  years  old — manage  a  horse  !  I  should  have  been  at  a  loss 
how  to  afford  my  boys  a  holiday,  with  a  military  parade  to-day,  but 
there  was  an  encampment  of  cadets,  about  two  estates  off,  and  they 
went  with  Colonel  T.’s  sons  to  see  them.” 

July  10  (1844).  "  A  poem  selected  by  my  darling  Jamie  and  put 

under  my  plate  at  the  breakfast-table,  as  a  surprise  on  his  tenth 
birthday.  I  shall  copy  it,  that  he  may  be  reminded  of  his  happy 
childhood,  when  perhaps  his  grateful  mother  is  not  with  him.” 

■August  20  (1844)-  "...  Jemmie  is  writing  a  note  to  his  Swedish 
1844]  9 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

tutor  on  his  birthday.  Jemmie  loves  him  sincerely  and  gratefully. 

I  suppose  his  partiality  to  this  Swede  makes  him  espouse  his  country  s 
cause  and  admire  the  qualities  of  Charles  XII.  so  greatly  to  the  prejudice 
of  Peter  the  Great.  He  has  been  quite  enthusiastic  while  reading  the 
life  of  this  King  of  Sweden,  this  summer,  and  too  willing  to  excuse 
his  errors.” 

August  23  (1844).  “  I  wish  I  could  describe  the  gardens  at  Peterhoff 

where  we  were  invited  to  drive  to-day.  The  fountains  are,  perhaps, 
the  finest  in  the  world.  The  water  descends  in  sheets  over  steps,  all 
the  heathen  deities  presiding.  Jemmie  was  delighted  with  the  figure 
of  Samson  tearing  open  the  jaws  of  the  lion,  from  which  ascends  a 
jet  eTeau  one  hundred  feet.  .  .  .  There  are  some  fine  pictures, 
but  Peter’s  own  paintings  of  the  feathered  race  ought  to  be  most 
highly  prized,  though  our  Jemmie  was  so  saucy  as  to  laugh  at 

them.”  ^  .  .  . 

August  28  (1844).  “I  availed  myself  of  Col.  Todds  invitation 

to  visit  Tsarskoe  Sel6  to-day  with  Aunt  Alicia,  Deborah,  and  the  two 
dear  boys,  who  are  always  so  delighted  at  these  little  excursions.  .  .  . 
My  little  Jemmie’s  heart  was  made  sad  by  discovering  swords  which 
had  been  taken  in  the  battle  between  Peter  and  Charles  XII.,  for  he 
knew,  from  their  rich  hilts  set  in  pearls  and  precious  stones,  that  they 
must  have  belonged  to  noble  Swedes.  ‘Oh!’  he  exclaimed,  Id 
rather  have  one  of  these  than  all  the  other  things  in  the  armoury  . 
How  beautiful  they  are  !  ’  .  .  .  I  was  somewhat  annoyed  that  Col. 
Todd  had  deemed  It  necessary  to  have  a  dinner  party  for  us. 

«  #  The  colonel  proposed  the  Emperor’s  health  in  champagne, 
which  not  even  the  Russian  general,  who  declined  wine,  could  refuse, 
and  even  I  put  my  glass  to  my  lips,  which  so  encouraged  my  little 
boys  that  they  presented  their  glasses  to  be  filled,  and,  forgetting  at 
their  little  side-table  the  guests  at  ours,  called  out  aloud, .  ‘  S ante  a 
V Ember eur!  ’  The  captain  clapped  his  hands  with  delight,  and 
afterwards  addressed  them  in  French.  All  at  the  table  laughed  and 
called  the  boys  ‘  Bans  sujets .’  ” 

They  were  at  St.  Petersburg  again  In  September,  preparing  their 
Christmas  gifts  for  America.  Whistler,  sending  one  to  his  cousin 
Amos  Palmer,  wrote  in  an  outburst  of  patriotism  that  t  e  n£ 1S 
were  going  to  America  to  be  licked  by  the  Yankees  ”  :  It  was  at  the  time 


In  Russia 


of  the  disagreement  over  Oregon  Territory.  In  another  letter  he  gives 
the  Fourth  of  July  as  his  birthday. 

Ash  Wednesday  (1845).  “  I  avail  myself  of  this  Lenten  season 

to  have  my  boys  every  morning  before  breakfast  recite  a  verse  from 
the  Psalms,  and  I,  who  wish  to  encourage  them,  am  ready  with  my 
response.  How  very  thankful  I  shall  be  when  the  weather  moderates 
so  that  Jemmie’s  long  imprisonment  may  end,  and  Willie  have  his  dear 
brother  with  him  in  the  skating  grounds  and  ice-hills.  Here  comes 
my  good  boy  Jemmie  now,  with  his  history  in  hand  to  read  to  me, 
as  he  does  every  afternoon,  as  we  fear  they  may  lose  their  own  language 
in  other  tongues,  and  thus  I  gain  a  half-hour’s  enjoyment  by  hearing 
them  read  daily.” 

April  5  (1845).  “  Our  boys  have  left  the  breakfast  table  before 

eight  o’clock  to  trundle  their  new  hoops  on  the  Quai  with  their  governess, 
and  have  brought  home  such  bright  red  cheeks  and  buoyant  spirits  to 
enter  the  schoolroom  with  and  to  gladden  my  eyes.  Jemmie  began 
his  course  of  drawing  lessons  at  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts  just  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  Neva,  exactly  fronting  my  bedroom  window.  He 
is  entered  at  the  second  room.  There  are  two  higher,  and  he  fears  he 
shall  not  reach  them,  because  the  officer  who  is  still  to  continue  his 
private  lesson  at  home  is  a  pupil  himself  in  the  highest,  and  Jemmie 
looks  up  to  him  with  all  the  reverence  an  artist  merits.  He  seems 
greatly  to  enjoy  going  to  his  class,  and  yesterday  had  to  go  by  the 
bridge  on  account  of  the  ice,  and  felt  very  important  when  he  told 
me  he  had  to  give  the  Isvoshtclok  fifteen  copecks  silver  instead  of 
ten.” 

In  the  archives  of  the  Imperial  Academy  of  Science  there  is  a 
“  List  of  Scholars  of  the  Imperial  Academy  of  Fine  Arts,”  and  in 
this  and  the  “  Class  Journal  of  the  Inspector  ”  for  1845  James  Whistler 
is  entered  as  “  belonging  to  the  drawing  class,  heads  from  Nature.” 
In  1846  he  was  on  March  2  examined  and  passed  as  first  in  his  class, 
the  number  being  twenty-eight.  From  1845  to  1849  Professors 
Vistelious  and  Voivov  were  the  masters  of  the  life  class. 

On  May  14  (1845)  there  was  a  review  of  troops  in  St.  Petersburg, 
and  the  Whistlers  saw  it  from  a  window  in  the  Prince  of  Oldenburg’s 
palace. 

“  Jemmie’s  eagerness  to  attain  all  his  desires  for  information  and 

1845] 


II 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

his  fearlessness  often  makes  him  offend,  and  it  makes  him  appear  less 
amiable  than  he  really  is.  The  officers,  however,  seemed  to  find  amuse¬ 
ment  in  his  remarks  in  French  or  English  as  they  accosted  him.  They 
were  soon  informed  of  his  military  ardour,  and  that  he  hoped  to 
serve  his  country.  England  ?  No,  indeed  !  Russia,  then  ?  No,  no  ’ 
America,  of  course  !  ” 

May  2  (1846).  “  The  boys  are  in  the  schoolroom  now,  reading  the 

Roman  history  in  French  to  M.  Lamartine,  promising  themselves  the 
pleasure  of  reviewing  the  pictures  at  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts  at 
noon,  which  they  have  enjoyed  almost  every  day  this  week.  It  is 
the  Triennial  Exhibition,  and  we  like  them  to  become  familiar  with 
the  subjects  of  the  modern  artists,  and  to  James  especially  it  is  the 
greatest  treat  we  could  offer.  I  went  last  Wednesday  with  Whistler 
and  was  highly  gratified.  I  should  like  to  take  some  of  the  Russian 
scenes  so  faithfully  portrayed  to  show  in  my  native  land.  My  James 
had  described  a  boy’s  portrait  said  to  be  his  likeness,  and  although  the 
eyes  were  black  and  the  curls  darker,  we  found  it  so  like  him  that  his 
father  said  he  would  be  glad  to  buy  it,  but  its  frame  would  only 
correspond  with  the  furniture  of  a  palace.  The  boy  is  taken  in  a  white 
shirt  with  crimped  frill,  open  at  the  throat  j  it  is  half-length,  and  no 
other  garment  could  show  off  the  glow  of  the  brunette  complexion  so 
finely.” 

May  30  (1846).  “  Yesterday  the  Empress  was  welcomed  back 

to  St.  Petersburg.  Last  night  the  illumination  which  my  boys  had 
been  eagerly  expecting  took  place.  When  at  10.30  they  came  in, 
Jamie  expressed  such  an  eager  desire  that  I  would  allow  him  to  be  my 
escort  just  to  take  a  peep  at  the  Nevski  that  I  could  not  deny  him. 
The  effect  of  the  light  from  Vasili  Ostrow  was  very  beautiful,  and  as 
we  drove  along  the  Quai,  the  flowers  and  decorations  of  large  mansions 
were,  I  thought,  even  more  tasteful.  We  had  to  fall  into  a  line  of 
carriages  in  the  Isaac  Square  to  enter  that  Broadway,  and  just  then 
a  shout  from  the  populace  announced  to  us  that  the  Empress  was  passing. 
I  was  terrified  lest  the  poles  of  their  carriages  should  run  into  our 
backs,  or  that  some  horses  might  take  fright  or  bite  us,  we  were  so 
close,  but  Jamie  laughed  heartily  and  aloud  at  my  timidity.  He  behaved 
like  a  man.  With  one  arm  he  guarded  me,  and  with  the  other  kept 
the  animals  at  a  proper  distance  ;  and,  I  must  confess,  brilliant  as  the 

L1846 


PORTRAIT  OF  WHISTLER  AS  A  BOY 
By  Sir  William  Boxall 


{See.  page  18) 


In  Russia 

spectacle  was,  my  great  pleasure  was  derived  from  the  conduct  of  my 
dear  and  manly  boy.” 

July  7  (1846).  “  My  two  boys  found  much  amusement  in  propelling 

themselves  on  the  drawbridge  to  and  from  the  fancy  island  in  the  pond 
at  Mrs.  G.’s,  where  we  went  to  spend  the  day  ;  they  find  it  such  a 
treat  to  be  in  the  country,  and  just  run  wild,  chasing  butterflies  and 
picking  the  wild  flowers  so  abundant.  But  nothing  gave  them  so  much 
pleasure  as  their  4th  July,  spent  with  their  little  American  friends 
at  Alexandrovsky,  the  Eastwicks  ;  the  fireworks,  percussion  caps,  muskets, 
horseback  riding,  &c.,  make  them  think  it  the  most  delightful  place 
in  Russia.  In  some  way  James  caught  cold,  and  his  throat  was  so 
inflamed  that  leeches  were  applied,  and  he  has  been  in  consequence 
confined  to  his  room.  .  .  .  We  spend  our  mornings  in  reading,  drawing, 
&c.  Then  the  boys  take  their  row  with  good  John  across  the  Neva, 
to  the  morning  bath,  and  in  the  cool  of  the  afternoon  a  drive  to  the 
island,  or  a  range  in  the  summer  gardens,  or  a  row  on  the  river.” 

July  27  (1846).  “  Last  Wednesday  they  had  another  long  day 

in  the  country,  and  got  themselves  into  much  mischief.  They  had 
at  last  broken  the  ropes  of  the  drawbridge,  by  which  it  was  drawn  to 
and  from  the  island,  and  there  were  my  wild  boys  prisoners  on  it.  I 
thought  it  best  for  them  to  remain  so,  as  they  were  so  unruly,  but 
the  good-natured  dominie  was  pressed  into  their  service,  and  swimming 
to  their  rescue,  ere  I  could  interfere  ;  Jemmie  was  so  drenched  by 
his  efforts  that  dear  Mrs.  R.  took  him  away  to  her  room  to  coax  him  to 
lie  down  awhile  and  to  rub  him  dry,  lest  his  sore  throat  return  to  tell 
a  tale  of  disobedience. 

“.  .  .  On  Thursday  there  was  another  grand  celebration  of  the 
birthday  of  the  Grand  Duchess  Olga.  I  gladly  gave  Mary  permission 
to  take  the  boys  in  our  carriage.  .  .  .  They  were  gone  so  long  that 
I  grew  anxious  about  them,  but  finally  they  arrived  very  tired,  and  poor 
Mary  said  she  never  wanted  to  go  in  such  a  crowd  again.  James  had 
protected  her  as  well  as  he  was  able,  but  she  was  glad  to  get  home 
safely.  The  boys,  however,  enjoyed  it  immensely,  as  they  saw  all  the 
Imperial  family  within  arm’s  length,  as  they  alighted  from  their  pony 
chaises  to  enter  the  New  Palace.  .  .  .  We  were  invited  to  go  to  the 
New  Palace,  and  went  immediately  to  the  apartment  occupied  by  his 
lamented  daughter.  On  one  side  is  the  lovely  picture  painted  by 
1840]  13 


James  McNeill  Whistle* 

Buloff,  so  like  her  in  life  and  health,  though  taken  after  death,  as  repre¬ 
senting  her  spirit  passing  upwards  to  the  palace  above  the  blue  sky. 
She  wears  her  Imperial  robes,  with  a  crown  on  her  head  ;  at  the  back 
of  the  crown  is  a  halo  of  glory— the  stars  surround  her  as  she  passes 
through  them.  No  wonder  James  should  have  thought  this  picture 
the  most  interesting  of  all  the  works  of  art  around  us.” 

In  the  autumn  of  1846  Major  Whistler  “placed  the  boys,  as 
boarders,  at  M.  Jourdan’s  school.  My  dear  boys  almost  daily 

exchange  billet-doux  with  mother,  since  their  absence  of  a  week  at  a 
time  from  home.  James  reported  everything  ‘  first-rate,’  even  to 
brown  bread  and  salt  for  breakfast,  and  greens  for  dinner,  and  both 
forbore  to  speak  of  homesickness,  and  welcome,  indeed,  were 
they  on  their  first  Saturday  at  home,  when  they  opened  the  front 
door  and  called,  *  Mother,  Mother  !  ’  as  they  rushed  in  all  in  a 
glow,  and  they  looked  almost  handsome  in  their  new  round  black 
cloth  caps,  set  to  one  side  of  their  cropped  heads,  and  the  tight  school 
uniform  of  grey  trousers  and  black  jacket  makes  them  appear  taller 
and  straighter  ;  Jamie  found  the  new  suit  too  tight  for  his  drawing 
lesson,  so  he  sacrificed  vanity  to  comfort,  and  was  not  diverted  from 
his  two  hours’  drawdng  by  the  other  boys’  frolics,  which  argues  well 
for  his  determination  to  improve,  as  he  promised  his  father.  How 
I  enjoyed  having  them  back  and  listening  to  all  their  chat- about  their 
chool— they  seemed  to  enjoy  their  nice  home  tea.  When  it  came  time 
for  them  to  go  back,  Willie  broke  down  and  told  me  all  he  had  suffered 
from  homesickness,  and  when  I  talked  to  my  more  manly  James,  I 
unfortunately  said,  ‘  You  do  not  know  what  he  feels.’  Then  Jamie’s 
wounded  love  melted  him  into  tears,  as  he  said,  ‘  Oh  !  mother,  you 
think  I  don’t  miss  being  away  from  home  !  ’  He  brushed  away  the  shower 
with  the  back  of  his  hand  as  if  he  was  afraid  of  being  seen  weeping. 
Dear  boys,  may  they  never  miss  me  as  I  miss  them  ! 

Shortly  after  this,  Mrs.  Whistler’s  youngest  son,  John  Bouttatz, 

born  in  the  summer  of  1845,  died. 

November  14  (1846).  “  Jamie  was  kept  in  until  night  last  Saturday, 

and  made  to  write  a  given  portion  of  French  over  twenty-five  times 
as  a  punishment  for  stopping  to  talk  to  a  classmate  after  their  recitation, 
instead  of  marching  back  to  his  seat  according  to  order— poor  fellow,  it 
was  rather  severe  when  he  had  looked  only  for  rewards  during  the  ueek  , 
IA  t1846 


In  Russia 


as  he  had  not  had  one  mark  of  disapprobation  in  all  that  time,  and 
was  so  much  elated  by  his  number  of  good  balls  for  perfect  recitations 
that  he  forgot  disobedience  of  orders  is  a  capital  offence  under  military 
discipline.  He  lost  his  drawing  lesson,  and  made  us  all  unhappy  at 
home.  We  tried  to  keep  his  dinner  hot,  but  his  appetite  had  forsaken 
him,  although  only  having  eaten  a  penny  roll  since  breakfast — he  dashed 
the  tears  of  vexation  from  his  eyes  at  losing  his  drawing  lesson,  but  his 
cheerfulness  was  soon  restored  and  we  had  our  usual  pleasant  evening.” 

January  23  (1847).  “  It  is  three  weeks  this  afternoon  since  the 

dear  boys  came  home  from  school  to  spend  the  Russian  Christmas 
and  holidays,  and  it  seems  not  probable  that  they  shall  return  again 
to  M.  Jourdan’s  this  winter.  James  was  drooping  from  the  close 
confinement,  and  for  two  days  was  confined  to  his  bed.  Then  Willie 
was  taken.  They  are  quite  recovered  now,  and  skate  almost  daily 
on  the  Neva,  and  Jamie  often  crosses  on  the  ice  to  the  Academy  of 
Fine  Arts  to  spend  an  hour  or  two.” 

January  30  (1847).  “Jamie  was  taken  ill  with  a  rheumatic  attack 
soon  after  this,  and  I  have  had  my  hands  full,  for  he  has  suffered 
much  with  pain  and  weariness,  but  he  is  gradually  convalescing,  and 
to-day  he  was  able  to  walk  across  the  floor  ;  he  has  been  allowed  to 
amuse  himself  with  his  pencil,  while  I  read  to  him  ;  he  has  not  taken 
a  dose  of  medicine  during  the  attack,  but  great  care  was  necessary  in 
his  diet.” 

February  27  (1847).  “  Never  shall  I  cease  to  record  with  deep 

gratitude  dear  Jamie’s  unmurmuring  submission  these  last  six  weeks. 
He  still  cannot  wear  jacket  or  trousers,  as  the  blistering  still  continues 
on  his  chest.  What  a  blessing  is  such  a  contented  temper  as  his,  so 
grateful  for  every  kindness,  and  rarely  complains.  He  is  now  enjoying 
a  huge  volume  of  Hogarth’s  engravings,  so  famous  in  the  Gallery  of 
Artists.  We  put  the  immense  book  on  the  bed,  and  draw  the  great 
easy-chair  close  up,  so  that  he  can  feast  upon  it  without  fatigue.  He 
said,  while  so  engaged  yesterday,  ‘  Oh,  how  I  wish  I  were  well ;  I  want 
so  to  show  these  engravings  to  my  drawing-master ;  it  is  not  everyone 
who  has  a  chance  of  seeing  Hogarth’s  own  engravings  of  his  originals,’ 
and  then  added,  in  his  own  happy  way,  '  and  if  I  had  not  been  ill, 
mother,  perhaps  no  one  would  have  thought  of  showing  them  to  me.’  ” 

From  this  time  until  his  death,  Whistler  maintained  that  Hogarth 
1847]  15 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

was  the  greatest  English  artist,  and  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  saying 
so.  His  long  illness  in  1847  is  therefore  memorable  as  the  beginning 
of  his  love  of  Hogarth  and  also  as  a  proof  of  his  early  appreciation  of 
great  art.  Curiously,  in  his  mother’s  diary  there  is  no  mention  of  the 
Hermitage,  nor  in  his  talks  with  us  did  he  ever  refer  to  it  and  to  the 
pictures  there  by  Velasquez,  the  artist  he  later  grew  to  admire  so 
enormously. 

March  23  (1847).  “After  many  postponements,  the  Emperor 
finally  inspected  the  Railroad  .  .  .  and  many  of  the  Court  were 
invited.  The  day  after  his  visit  .  .  .  the  Court  held  a  levee,  my  husband 
was  invited  ;  when  he  arrived  was  summoned  to  a  private  audience  in 
an  inner  apartment ;  the  Emperor  met  him  with  marked  kindness,  kissed 
him  on  each  side  his  face,  and  hung  an  ornament  suspended  by  a  scarlet 
ribbon  around  his  neck,  saying  the  Emperor  thus  conferred  upon  him 
the  Order  of  St.  Anne.  Whistler,  as  such  honours  are  new  to  Repub¬ 
licans,  was  somewhat  abashed,  but  when  he  returned  with  the  Court 
to  the  large  circle  in  the  outer  room,  he  was  congratulated  by  the  officers 
generally.” 

It  is  said  that  when  Major  Whistler  was  asked  to  wear  the  Russian 
uniform  he  refused.  The  decoration  he  could  not  decline. 

Whistler  told  us  that  the  Emperor  was  most  impressed  with  the 
way  his  father  met  every  difficulty.  When  Major  Whistler  asked  the 
Czar  how  the  line  should  be  built,  showing  him  the  map  of  the  country 
between  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow,  the  Czar,  as  everybody  now 
knows,  took  a  ruler,  drew  a  straight  line  from  one  city  to  the  other, 
and  the  railroad  follows  that  ruled  line.  But  everybody  does  not  know 
that  when  the  rolling  stock  was  ready  it  was  found  to  have  been 
made  of  a  different  gauge  from  the  rails.  The  people  who  supplied 
it  demanded  to  be  paid.  Major  Whistler  not  only  refused,  but  burnt  it, 
and  took  the  responsibility. 

Mrs.  Whistler  and  the  three  children  spent  the  summer  of  1847 
in  England,  where  Major  Whistler  joined  them.  They  visited  their 
relations,  and  before  their  return  Deborah  was  married.  She  had  met 
Seymour  Haden,  a  young  surgeon,  while  staying  with  friends,  the 
Chapmans,  at  Preston. 

October  10(1847).  “  Deborah’s  wedding  day.  Bright  and  pleasant. 

James  the  only  groomsman,  and  very  proud  of  the  honour.” 

16  t1847 


THE  TWO  BROTHERS.  MINIATURE 
Lent  by  Miss  Emma  Palmer 

Formerly  in  the  possession  of  Mrs.  George  D.  Stanton  and 
Miss  Emma  W.  Palmer 


( See  page  19) 


In  Russia 


The  next  summer  (1848)  Mrs.  Whistler  went  back  to  England. 
Jamie  had  had  another  of  his  bad  attacks  of  rheumatic  fever,  cholera 
broke  out  in  St. Petersburg ;  “at  its  very  name,”  she  wrote,  “my  heart 
failed  me.”  On  July  6  she  left  for  London  with  her  boys.  Jamie 
was  better,  and  anxious  to  make  a  portrait  of  a  young  Hindu  aboard. 

July  22(1848).  “  Shanklin,  Isle  oj  Wight.  This  is  Willie’s  twelfth 

birthday  and  has  been  devoted  to  his  pleasure  ;  poor  Jamie  was  envious 
that  he  could  not  bathe  with  us  in  the  beautiful  summer  sea,  for  the 
doctors  think  the  bracing  air  as  much  as  he  can  bear ;  we  three  had  a 
seaside  ramble  and  then  returned  to  rest  at  our  cottage.  I  plied  the 
needle,  while  my  boys  amused  themselves,  Willie  in  making  wax  flowers 
and  Jemmie  in  drawing.” 

Monday  [no  date].  “  This  day  being  especially  fine,  Mrs.  P.  took 
the  boys  on  a  pedestrian  excursion  along  the  shore  to  Culver  Cliffs. 
In  the  hope  that  Jamie  might  finish  his  sketch  of  Cook’s  Castle,  we 
started  the  next  day  after  an  early  dinner,  taking  a  donkey  with  us 
for  fear  of  fatigue  for  James  or  Deborah.  .  .  .  We  availed  ourselves 
of  a  lovely  bright  morning  to  take  a  drive,  said  to  be  the  most  charming 
in  England,  along  the  south  coast  of  the  Isle  as  far  as  ‘  Black  Gang 
Chine,’  where  we  alighted  at  the  inn.  Jamie  flew  off  like  a  sea-fowl, 
his  sketch-book  in  hand,  and  when  I  finally  found  him,  he  was  seated 
on  the  red  sandy  beach,  down,  down,  down,  where  it  was  with  difficulty 
Willie  and  I  followed  him.  He  was  attempting  the  sketch  of  the 
waterfall  and  cavern  up  the  side  of  the  precipice  ;  he  came  back  later, 
glowing  with  the  exercise  of  climbing,  with  sketch-book  in  hand,  and 
laughing  at  being  ‘  Jacky  last,  ’  as  we  were  all  assembled  for  our  drive 
back.” 

James  did  not  return  with  Mrs.  Whistler.  It  was  feared  his  health 
would  not  stand  another  Russian  winter.  He  stayed  with  the  Hadens 
at  62  Sloane  Street,  and  studied  with  a  clergyman  who  had  one  other 
pupil.  It  was  then  that  Boxall,  commissioned  by  Major  Whistler, 
painted  his  portrait,  “  when  he  was  fourteen  years  old,”  Mrs.  Thynne, 
his  niece,  says. 

Mr.  Alan  S.  Cole,  C.B.,  recalls  that  “  Whistler,  as  early  as  1849,  was 
staying  with  the  Hadens  in  Sloane  Street,  and  went  to  one  or  two 
children’s  parties  given  by  the  old  Dilkes.  To  these  also  went  my 
elder  sisters  and  Miss  Thackeray  and  so  met  Jimmy.  Seymour 
1848-9]  B  iy 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Haden  was  our  family  doctor — with,  whose  family  ours  was  intimate _ very 

much  on  account  of  the  early  relations  between  my  father,  his  brothers, 
and  Seymour  Haden,  dating  from  schooldays  at  Christ’s  Hospital.” 

Major  Whistler,  through  the  summer  of  1848,  continued  his  work, 
though  cholera  raged.  In  November  he  was  attacked.  He  recovered, 
but  his  health  was  shaken ;  he  overtaxed  his  strength,  and  on  April  9, 
1849,  he  died  :  the  immediate  cause  heart  trouble,  which  his  son 
inherited.  He  had  been  employed  or  consulted  also  in  the  building 
of  the  iron  roof  of  the  Riding  House  at  St.  Petersburg  and  the  iron 
bridge  over  the  Neva,  in  the  improvement  of  the  Dvina  at  Archangel, 
and  the  fortifications,  the  arsenal,  and  the  docks  at  Cronstadt.  He 
was  buried  in  Evergreen  Cemetery,  Stonington,  with  three  of  his  sons, 
and  a  monument  was  erected  to  his  memory  by  his  fellow  officers  in 
Greenwood  Cemetery,  Brooklyn. 

The  Emperor  suggested,  Whistler  told  us,  that  the  boys  should 
be  educated  in  the  school  for  Court  pages.  But  Mrs.  Whistler  deter¬ 
mined  to  take  them  home,  and  the  Emperor  sent  her  in  his  State 
barge  to  the  Baltic.  She  went  to  the  Hadens,  where  she  found  James 
grown  tall  and  strong.  In  London  they  forgot  for  a  moment  their 
sorrow  in  their  visit  to  the  Royal  Academy  (1849),  in  Trafalgar  Square, 
where  Boxall’s  portrait  of  James  was  exhibited.  A  short  visit  to 
Preston  followed,  the  two  boys  carried  off  by  “  kind  Aunt  Alicia  ” 
to  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow,  and  then  they  met  in  Liverpool.  Economy 
made  Mrs.  Whistler  hesitate  between  steamer  and  sailing-packet,  but, 
by  the  advice  of  George  Whistler,  she  took  the  steamer  America , 
July  29,  1849,  for  New  York,  where  they  arrived  on  August  9,  at  once 
going  by  boat  to  Stonington. 


CHAPTER  III  :  SCHOOLDAYS  IN  POMFRET.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  FORTY-NINE  TO  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-ONE. 

“The  boys  were  brought  up  like  little  princes  until  their  father’s 
death,  which  changed  everything,”  Miss  Emma  W.  Palmer  writes 
us.  Major  Whistler’s  salary  was  large,  so  were  his  expenses ;  we 
have  never  heard  there  was  a  pension.  He  left  his  family  com¬ 
paratively  poor— fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year. 

18 


[1849 


Schooldays  in  Pomfret 


Mrs.  Whistler  would  have  preferred  to  stay  at  Stonington,  but 
for  her  two  sons’  sake  she  went  to  Pomfret,  Connecticut,  where  there 
was  a  good  school,  Christ  Church  Hall.  The  principal  was  Rev.  Dr. 
Roswell  Park,  a  West  Point  engineer  before  he  became  parson  and  school 
teacher.  At  Pomfret  Mrs.  Whistler  made  herself  a  home.  She  could 
only  afford  part  of  an  old  farmhouse,  and  she  felt  keenly  the  discomfort 
for  her  boys.  Yet  she  kept  up  the  old  discipline.  On  Christmas  Day 
she  wrote  to  her  mother  that  they  had  been  busy  all  morning  bringing 
in  wood  and  listing  draughty  doors,  though  she  allowed  them  to  lighten 
their  task  by  hanging  up  evergreens  and  to  sweeten  it  with  “  Stuart’s 
Candy.”  After  a  snowstorm,  they  had,  like  other  boys,  to  shovel 
paths,  and  all  the  while  they  had  to  study.  “Jimmie  was  still  an 
excitable  spirit  with  little  perseverance,”  she  wrote  ;  however, 
she  would  not  faint  but  labour,  and  “  I  urged  them  on  daily,  and 
could  see  already  their  exertions  to  overcome  habits  of  indolence.” 
The  Bible  was  read  and  the  two  boys  were  made  to  recite  a  verse  every 
morning  before  breakfast.  Miss  Palmer,  their  schoolmate,  during 
the  winter  of  1850,  remembers  that  Mrs.  Whistler  “was  very  strict 
with  them,”  and  describes  Whistler  at  this  period  as  “  tall  and  slight, 
with  a  pensive,  delicate  face,  shaded  by  soft  brown  curls,  one  lock  of 
which  fell  over  his  forehead.  ...  He  had  a  somewhat  foreign 
appearance  and  manner,  which,  aided  by  his  natural  abilities,  made  him 
very  charming  even  at  that  age.  .  .  .  He  was  one  of  the  sweetest, 
loveliest  boys  I  ever  met,  and  was  a  great  favourite.” 

The  deepest  impression  he  left  at  Pomfret  was  as  a  draughtsman. 
He  made  caricatures  and  illustrations  to  the  books  he  read,  portraits 
of  his  friends  and  landscapes.  Many  of  his  sketches  have  been  preserved. 
The  late  Mrs.  Louise  Chandler  Moulton,  also  one  of  his  schoolmates, 
described  him  as  “  a  man  as  fascinating  as  he  was  great,  with  a  charm 
which  from  the  very  beginning  everyone  who  knew  him  recognised.” 
Whistler  told  us  that  he  used  to  walk  to  school  with  her,  carrying  her 
books  and  basket,  and  she  wrote  us  : 

“  He  was  very  attentive  and  kind  ;  full  of  fun  in  those  days.  The 
master  of  the  school-— Rev.  Dr.  Roswell  Park— was  one  of  the  stiff est 
and  most  precise  of  clergymen,  and  dressed  the  part.  One  day  Whistler 
came  to  school  with  a  high,  stiff  collar  and  a  tie  precisely  copied  from 
Dr.  Park’s.  Of  course,  the  schoolroom  was  full  of  suppressed  laughter. 
1850]  19 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

The  reverend  gentleman  was  very  angry,  but  he  could  hardly  take 
open  notice  of  an  offence  of  that  sort.  So  he  bottled  up  his  wrath 
but  when  Jimmy- as  we  used  to  call  him  in  those  school  days -gave 
him  some  trifling  cause  of  offence,  the  Rev.  Dr.  went  for  him  with  a 
ferrule  The  school  was  in  two  divisions-the  girls  sitting  on  one  side 
of  the  large  hall,  and  the  boys  on  the  other.  Jimmy,  pursued  by  the 
Dr.  and  the  ferrule,  went  round  back  of  the  girls’  row,  and  threw 
himself  down  on  the  floor,  and  the  Dr.  followed  him  and  whacked 
him,  more,  I  think,  to  Jimmy’s  amusement  than  to  his  discomfort.” 

Mrs.  Moulton  had  further  recollections  of  the  maps  he  drew 
which  “  were  at  once  the  pride  and  the  envy  of  all  the  rest  of  us— they 
were  so  perfect,  so  delicate,  so  exquisitely  dainty  in  workmanship  ” 
The  work  done  at  Pomfret  by  Whistler  which  we  have  seen  does 
not  strike  us  as  remarkable.  It  has  its  historic  importance,  but  shows 
no  greater  evidence  of  genius  than  the  early  work  of  any  great  artist. 


CHAPTER  IV :  WEST  POINT.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY- 
ONE  TO  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-FOUR. 


Though  Whistler’s  mother  was  proud  of  his  drawing,  she  did  not 
see  m  art  a  career  for  him.  She  thought  he  had  inherited  a  profes- 
smn  more  distinguished.  Many  Whistlers  and  McNeills  had  been 
soldiers.  West  Point  had  made  of  them  men— Americans.  West  Point 
must  do  the  same  for  him.  Through  the  influence  of  George  Whistler 
wit  .  Daniel  Webster,  he  was  appointed  cadet  At  Large  by  President 
i  more,  and  on  July  i,  1851,  after  two  years  at  Pomfret  school,  within 
ten  days  of  his  seventeenth  birthday,  he  entered  the  United  States 
Military  Academy,  West  Point,  where  Colonel  Robert  E.  Lee  was 
Commandant.  Whistler  was  not  made  for  the  army  any  more  than 
Giotto  for  Tuscan  pastures,  or  Corot  for  a  Paris  bonnet  shop  It  was 
inevitable  that  he  should  fail.  Yet  his  three  years  at  West  Point 
were  an  experience  he  would  not  have  missed. 

The  record  sent  to  us  from  West  Point  by  Colonel  C.  W.  Lamed 

“He  entered  Jul7  C  i85L  under  the  name  of  James  A. 
Whistler  ;  aged  sixteen  years  and  eleven  months.  He  was  appointed 
At  Large.  ...  At  the  end  of  his  second  year,  in  1853,  he  was  absent 
20  [1851 


(See  page  38) 


B1BI  LALOUETTE 
etching.  G.  51 


West  Point 


with  leave  on  account  of  ill-health.  On  June  1 6,  i854>  was  discharged 
from  the  Academy  for  deficiency  in  chemistry.  At  that  time  he  stood 
at  the  head  of  his  class  in  drawing  and  No.  39  in  philosophy,  the  total 
number  in  the  class  being  43.” 

The  Professor  of  Drawing  was  Robert  W.  Weir.  Mr.  J.  Alden 
Weir,  his  son,  remembers,  “  as  a  boy,  my  father  showing  me  his  work, 
which  at  that  time  hung  in  what  was  known  as  the  Gallery  of  the 
Drawing  Academy.  There  were  about  ten  works  by  him  framed. 
From  the  start  he  showed  evidences  of  a  talent  which  later  proved 
to  be  unique  in  those  fine  and  rare  qualities  hard  to  be  understood  by 
the  majority.” 

Brigadier-General  Alexander  S.  Webb,  one  of  Whistler’s  classmates, 
says :  “In  the  art  class  one  day,  while  Whistler  was  busy  over  an  India- 
ink  drawing  of  a  French  peasant  girl,  Weir  walked,  as  usual,  from  desk 
to  desk,  examining  the  pupils’  work.  After  looking  over  Whistler’s 
shoulder  he  stepped  back  to  his  own  desk,  filled  his  brush  with  India- 
ink  [General  Webb  says  he  can  see  him  now,  rubbing  the  colour  on 
the  slab],  and  approached  Whistler  with  a  view  of  correcting  some  of 
the  lines  in  the  latter’s  drawing.  When  Whistler  saw  him  coming, 
he  raised  his  hands  as  if  to  ward  off  the  strokes  of  his  brush,  and  called 
out,  ‘  Oh,  don’t,  sir,  don’t  !  You’ll  spoil  it  !  ’  ” 

Mr.  William  M.  Chase  told  the  story  to  Whistler  and  asked  if  there 
was  any  truth  in  it.  “  Well,  you  know  he  would  have  !  ”  said  Whistler. 

Colonel  Larned  writes  us  :  “I  have  here  two  drawings  made  by 
Whistler  in  his  course  of  instruction  in  drawing,  one  of  which  is  a 
water-colour  copy  of  a  coloured  print,  without  special  merit,  and  much 
touched  up  by  Professor  Weir,  as  was  his  wont  ;  another,  a  pen-and- 
ink  copy  also  of  a  colour  print,  quite  brilliant  and  masterful  in  execu¬ 
tion,  which  I  presented  to  the  officers’  mess.  The  colour  sketch  bears 
the  ear-marks  all  over  it  of  Weir’s  retouching.  It  was  his  habit  to 
touch  up  all  water-colours  of  the  cadets  for  the  examination  exhi¬ 
bition,  and  I  don’t  believe  Whistler  at  that  time  had  any  such  facility 
in  colour  work  as  is  indicated  in  this  drawing.  With  my  knowledge 
of  my  predecessor’s  practice,  which  we  instructors  follow  to  the  best 
of  our  ability,  I  have  always  been  suspicious  of  its  integrity.  At  the 
same  time  Whistler  was  head  in  drawing,  and  it  may  be  that  Weir 
forbore  in  his  case.  The  pen-and-ink,  however,  must  have  been  his 
1851]  21 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

own  interpretation  of  a  colour  lithograph,  and  shows  such  facility 
that  it  makes  me  hesitate. 

Whistler  did  another  water-colour  of  a  monk  seated  at  a  table 
by  a  window  wiiting.  This  is  also  a  copy  of  an  old  print  which  was 
used  by  Weir  through  successive  classes.  I  think  it  was  - — - —  who  saw 
the  thing  and  wrote  a  lot  of  tommy-rot  and  hi-falutin  about  it  and 
Whistler  s  satiric  genius,  and  his  introduction  in  the  monk’s  face  of 
that  of  his  room-mate,  assuming  it  to  have  been  an  original  production. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  I  have  copies  of  the  same  thing  by  cadets  in  the 
gallery,  all  touched  up  by  Weir,  and  I  fancy  about  as  good  as  Whistler’s.” 

Of  these  West  Point  drawings,  copies  probably  of  lithographs  by 
Nash  or  Haghe,  only  the  pen  drawing  gives  any  promise.  The  water¬ 
colour  is  worthless.  The  pen  drawing  has  in  it  the  beginning  of  the 
handling  of  his  etchings.  Five  drawings,  four  of  An  Hour  in  the  Lije  of  a 
Cade  tin  pen-and-ink,  and  one  of  An  Encampment  in  wash,  have  lately  been 
found  at  West  Point.  T.  he  cadet  drawings  are  far  the  best  of  his  early 
woik  that  we  have  seen.  The  Century  Magazine  published  (March  1910) 
a  lithograph,  called  The  Song  of  the  Graduates ,  said  to  be  by  Whistler. 
It  is  evident,  however,  that  if  Whistler  did  make  the  sketch,  it  was 
re-drawn  by  a  professional  lithographer  at  Sarony’s,  who  printed  it. 
The  Centuiy  also  published  (September  1910)  a  wood-engraving  of  some 
class  function  for  which  he  is  given  the  credit  as  draughtsman  and 
engraver.  But  the  work  is  that  of  a  professional  wood-engraver  and 
could  not  have  been  done  by  Whistler  at  any  period  of  his  life.  The 
attribution  of  these  published  prints  to  him  is  altogether  unjustified. 

Of  his  other  studies  there  is  little  to  record.  This  is  Colonel  Larned’s 
account  of  his  failure  in  chemistry  :  “  Whistler  said  :  ‘  Had  silicon 
been  a  gas,  I  would  have  been  a  major-general.’  He  was  called  up 
for  examination  in  chemistry  .  .  .  and  given  silicon  to  discuss.  He 
began  :  ‘lam  required  to  discuss  the  subject  of  silicon.  Silicon  is  a 
gas.’  That  will  do,  Mr.  Whistler,’  and  he  retired  quickly  to  private 
life.” 

According  to  Colonel  Larned,  Whistler  then  appealed  to  General 
Lee,  but  Lee  answered,  “I  can  only  regret  that  one  so  capable  of 
doing  well  should  so  have  neglected  himself,  and  must  suffer  the 
penalty.” 

Another  story  is  of  an  examination  in  history.  “  What  !  ”  said 

22  [1851 


West  Point 


his  examiner,  “  you  do  not  know  the  date  of  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista  ? 
Suppose  you  were  to  go  out  to  dinner,  and  the  company  began  to  talk 
of  the  Mexican  War,  and  you,  a  West  Point  man,  were  asked  the  date 
of  the  battle,  what  would  you  do  ?  ”  “  Do,”  said  Whistler,  “  why,  I 

should  refuse  to  associate  with  people  who  could  talk  of  such  things 
at  dinner  !  ” 

Whistler’s  horsemanship  was  little  better.  It  was  not  unusual, 
General  Webb  says,  for  him  at  cavalry  drill  to  go  sliding  over  his  horse’s 
head.  Then  Major  Sackett,  the  commander,  would  call  out  :  “Mr. 
Whistler,  aren’t  you  a  little  ahead  of  the  squad  ?  ”  Whistler  said  to  us 
Major  Sackett’s  remark  was  :  “  Mr.  Whistler,  I  am  pleased  to  see  you 
for  once  at  the  head  of  your  class  !  ”  “  But  I  did  it  gracefully,”  he 

insisted.  There  are  traditions  of  his  fall  when  trotting  in  his  first 
mounted  drill,  and  the  astonishment  of  the  dragoon  who  ran  to  carry 
him  off  to  hospital,  when  he  rose  unhurt  with  the  complaint  that  he 
didn’t  “see  how  any  man  could  keep  a  horse  for  amusement.”  Once 
Whistler  had  to  ride  a  horse  called  “  Quaker.”  “  Dragoon,  what  horse 
is  this  ?  ”  “  4  Quaker,’  ”  said  the  soldier.  “  Well,  he’s  no  friend  !  ”  said 
Whistler. 

His  observance  of  the  regulations  was  often  as  bad  as  his  horseman¬ 
ship,  and  his  excuses  worse.  General  Ruggles,  a  classmate,  tells  of 
the  discovery  of  a  pair  of  boots  which  were  against  the  regulations, 
and  of  his  writing  a  long  explanation,  winding  up  with  the  argument 
that,  as  this  demerit  added  but  a  little  to  the  whole  number,  what 
boots  it  ?  ” 

General  Langdon  writes  us  :  “  The  widow  of  a  Colonel  Thompson 
occupied  a  set  of  officer’s  quarters  at  the  ‘  Point,'  and,  to  eke  out  her 
pension,  was  allowed  to  take  ten  or  twelve  cadets  to  board.  Very 
soon  after  his  admission  to  the  Academy  Whistler  discovered  that 
the  fare  of  the  cadets  was  not  to  his  taste,  and  he  applied  for  per¬ 
mission  to  take  his  meals  at  Mrs.  Thompson’s.  Now,  though  her  house 
was  in  the  row  of  officers’  quarters  and  the  nearest  to  the  cadet 
barracks,  it  was  ‘  off  cadet  limits,’  except  for  the  boarders  at  meals. 
One  evening,  long  after  supper,  Whistler  was  discovered  by  Mrs. 
Thompson,  leaning  over  her  fence,  talking  with  her  pretty  French 
maid.  Mrs.  Thompson  inquired  his  business  there.  Whistler  replied  : 
‘  I  am  looking  for  my  cat  !  ’  It  was  well  known  that  cadets  were  not 
1851]  23 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

allowed  to  keep  cats,  dogs,  or  other  beasts.  The  old  lady  nearly  had 
a  fit.  As  soon  as  she  could  recover  she  gasped  out  :  ‘  Young  man, 
go  ’way  !  ’  and  sent  her  pretty  maid  indoors.  Of  course,  Whistler  took 
no  more  meals  at  Mrs.  Thompson’s,  but  in  the  mess  hall,  where  the  fare 
in  those  days  was  far  from  inviting.” 

Whistler  told  Sir  Rennell  Rodd  another  story  :  “  The  cadets  were 

out  early  one  morning,  engaged  in  surveying.  It  was  cold  and  raw, 
and  Jimmy,  finding  a  line  of  deep  ditch  through  which  he  could  make 
a  retiring  movement,  got  back  into  college  and  his  warm  quarters 
unperceived.  By  accident  a  roll-call  was  held  that  morning.  Cadet 
Whistler  not  being  present,  a  report  was  drawn  up  and  his  name  was 
sent  to  the  commanding  officer  as  absent  from  parade  without  the 
knowledge  or  permission  of  his  instructor.  The  report  was  shown  him, 
and  he  said  to  the  instructor  :  ‘  Have  I  your  permission  to  speak  ?  ’ 

‘  Speak  on,  Cadet  Whistler.’  1  You  have  reported  me,  sir,  for  being 
absent  from  parade  without  the  knowledge  or  permission  of  my 
instructor.  Well,  now,  if  I  was  absent  without  your  knowledge  or 
permission,  how  did  you  know  I  was  absent  !  ’  They  got  into  terms 
after  that,  and  the  incident  closed.” 

The  stories  of  Whistler  at  West  Point  might  be  multiplied.  Many 
have  been  published.  The  few  we  tell  show  that  at  the  Military 
Academy,  as  everywhere,  he  left  his  mark.  We  have  a  stronger  proof 
in  the  letters  written  to  us  by  officers  who  were  his  fellow  cadets. 
It  is  half  a  century  since  they  and  Whistler  were  together,  and,  with 
one  exception,  they  never  saw  him  in  later  years,  yet  their  memory  of 
him  is  fresh.  General  D.  McN.  Gregg  and  General  C.  B.  Comstock, 
his  classmates,  General  Loomis  L.  Langdon,  General  Henry  L.  Abbott, 
General  Oliver  Otis  Howard,  General  G.  W.  C.  Lee,  in  the  class  before 
his,  have  sent  us  their  recollections.  These  distinguished  officers  agree 
in  their  affection  and  their  appreciation  of  him.  He  was  “  a  vivacious 
and  likeable  little  fellow,”  General  Comstock  says,  and  we  get  a  picture 
of  him,  short  and  slight,  not  over  military  in  his  bearing,  somewhat 
foreign  in  appearance,  near-sighted,  and  with  thick,  black  curls  that 
won  him  the  name  of  “  Curly.”  Others  remember  his  wit,  his  pranks, 
his  fondness  for  cooking  and  the  excellence  of  his  dishes  ;  his  excur¬ 
sions  “  after  taps,”  for  buckwheat  cakes  and  oysters  or  ice-cream  and 
soda-water  to  joe’s,  and,  for  heavier  fare,  to  Benny  Haven’s  a  mile  away, 


LA  MERE  GERARD 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  A.  C  Swinburne 


(See  page  39) 


West  Point 


a  serious  offence  ;  they  remember  his  indifference  to  discipline,  and 
the  number  of  his  demerits,  which  they  excuse  as  "  not  indicating 
any  moral  obliquity,”  but  due  to  such  harmless  faults  as  “  lates,” 
“  absences,”  “  clothing  out  of  order  ”  ;  most  of  all,  they  remember 
his  drawings — his  caricatures  of  the  cadets,  the  Board  of  Visitors, 
the  masters,  his  sketches  scribbled  over  his  text-books,  his  illustrations 
to  Dickens,  Dumas,  Victor  Hugo.  General  Langdon  recalls  a  picture 
that  he  and  Whistler  painted  together.  Whistler  gave  these  drawings 
away,  and  many  have  been  preserved.  Even  the  cover  of  a  geometry 
book,  on  which  he  sketched  and  noted  bets  with  General  Webb,  was 
kept  by  his  room-mate,  Frederick  L.  Childs— Les  Enjants,  Whistler 
called  him. 

Whistler  looked  back  to  West  Point  with  equal  affection.  He 
failed,  but  West  Point  was  the  basis  of  his  code  of  conduct.  As  a 
“  West  Point  man  ”  he  met  every  emergency,  and  his  bearing,  his 
carriage,  showed  the  influence  of  those  days  when  he  liked  to  look  back 
to  himself  “  very  dandy  in  grey.”  For  the  discipline,  the  tradition, 
the  tone  of  the  Academy  he  never  lost  his  respect.  He  knew  what  it 
could  do  in  making  men  of  boys.  “  From  the  moment  we  came,” 
he  said  to  us,  “  we  were  United  States  officers,  not  schoolboys,  not 
college  students.  We  were  ruled,  not  by  little  school  or  college  rules, 
but  by  our  honour,  by  our  deference  to  the  unwritten  law  of  tradition.” 
He  resented  the  least  innovation  that  threatened  the  hold  of  this 
tradition  over  the  cadets.  “  To  take  a  cadet  into  court  was  destruction 
to  the  morale  of  West  Point  ;  it  was  such  a  disgrace  to  offend  against 
the  unwritten  laws  that  the  offender’s  career  was  ruined.”  In  the 
most  trivial  matters  he  deplored  deviation  from  the  old  standard. 
That  was  the  reason  of  his  indignation  when  he  heard  that  cadets 
were  playing  football,  and,  worse,  playing  against  college  teams ; 
to  put  themselves  on  the  level  of  students  “  was  beneath  the  dignity 
of  officers  of  the  United  States.”  During  our  war  with  Spain,  and  the 
Boers’  struggle  in  South  Africa,  there  was  not  an  event,  not  a  rumour, 
that  he  did  not  refer  to  West  Point  and  its  code.  The  Spanish  War, 
though,  “  no  doubt,  we  should  never  have  gone  into  it,  was  the  most 
wonderful,  the  most  beautiful  war  since  Louis  XIV.  Never  in  modern 
times  has  there  been  such  a  war ;  it  was  conducted  on  correct  West 
Point  principles,  with  th'e  most  perfect  courtesy  and  dignity  on  both 
1858]  2S 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

sides,  and  the  greatest  chivalry.”  When  he  came  back  to  London  from 
Corsica  in  1901,  and  was  telling  us  of  the  people  and  the  way  they  clung 
to  old  custom  and  ceremonial,  he  said  that  he  had  found  “  the  Roman 
tradition  almost  as  fine  as  the  West  Point  tradition,”  and  this  was  a 
concession.  We  never  knew  him  to  show  the  least  desire  to  return 
to  Lowell  or  Stonington,  to  Pomfret  or  Washington,  but  he  said,  “  If 
I  ever  make  the  journey  to  America,  I  will  go  straight  to  Baltimore, 
then  to  West  Point,  and  then  sail  for  England  again.”  One  evening 
we  asked  him  to  meet  an  officer  just  from  West  Point.  His  interest 
could  not  have  been  keener,  had  he  left  the  Academy  the  day  before. 
He  wanted  to  know  about  everything— the  buildings,  the  life,  the 
discipline.  He  deplored  every  innovation,  always,  above  all,  football. 
West  Point  to  him  was  in  danger  when  cadets  could  stoop  to  dispute 
“  with  college  students  for  a  dirty  ball  kicked  round  a  muddy  field.” 
This  was  the  shadow  thrown  over  his  pleasure  when  he  heard  of  the 
pride  the  Academy  took  in  claiming  him,  of  his  reputation  there,  of 
his  drawings  hanging  in  places  of  honour.  It  was  the  military  side 
of  the  Academy,  however,  that  stirred  him  to  enthusiasm.  His  face 
fell  when,  asking  the  officer,  who,  like  Major  Whistler,  was  in  the  artillery, 
“  Professor  of  Tactics,  I  suppose  ?  ”  the  officer  answered,  “  No,  of 
French.”  He  showed  his  affection  for  the  Military  Academy  by 
sending  to  the  library  a  copy  of  Whistler  v.  Rusk  in :  Art  and  Art 
Critics ,  with  autograph  notes  and  on  the  title-page  the  inscription  : 
“  From  an  old  cadet  whose  pride  it  is  to  remember  his  West  Point 
days.”  This  is  signed  with  the  Butterfly,  and  newspaper  cuttings 
about  the  trial  are  pasted  at  the  end  of  the  book.  The  authorities  at 
West  Point  have  honoured  him  by  placing  a  memorial  tablet,  one  of 
St.  Gaudens’  last  works,  in  the  library  of  the  Academy,  and  at  the 
suggestion  of  the  late  Major  Zalinski,  a  number  of  American  artists 
have  given  a  series  of  works  to  the  Academy  in  his  honour.  In  this 
collection  Whistler  alone  is  not  represented,  we  believe. 

But  it  needs  more  than  respect  and  love  for  the  Military  Academy 
to  make  a  soldier,  and  Whistler,  like  Poe  before  him,  was  an  alien  at 
West  Point.  It  was  no  question  of  the  number  of  his  demerits,  or 
of  his  ignorance  of  chemistry  and  history  ;  he  had  something  else  to 
do  in  life. 


26 


[1854 


The  Coast  Survey 


CHAPTER  V :  THE  COAST  SURVEY.  THE  YEARS  EIGH¬ 
TEEN  FIFTY-FOUR  AND  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-FIVE. 

When  Whistler  left  West  Point  in  1854  he  had  not  only  to  face 
the  disappointment,  of  his  mother,  but  to  find  another  career.  The 
plan  now  was  to  apprentice  him  to  Mr.  Winans,  in  the  locomotive 
works  at  Baltimore. 

Mr.  Frederick  B.  Miles  writes  us  :  “  It  was  in  1854  t^iat  ^  ^rst 

met  Whistler  in  Baltimore,  after  he  left  West  Point,  at  the  house  of 
Thomas  Winans,  who  had  returned  from  Russia.  I  was  apprenticed 
to  the  loco,  works  of  old  Mr.  Ross  Winans,  Fhomas  Winans  father. 
His  elder  brother,  George  Whistler,  was  a  friend  of  my  family  ,  had 
been  superintendent  of  the  New  York  and  New  Haven  Railroad,  and 
had  married  Miss  Julia  Winans,  sister  of  Thomas  Winans,  then  came 
into  the  loco,  works  as  partner  and  superintendent.  I  was  in  the 
drawing-room  under  him. 

“  Whistler  was  staying  with  Tom  Winans  or  his  brother,  George 
Whistler.  They  were  perplexed  at  his  ‘  flightiness  ’—wanted  him  to 
enter  the  loco,  works.  His  younger  brother  William  was  an  apprentice 
along  with  me.  But  Jem  never  really  worked.  He  spent  much  of  his 
several  short  stays  and  two  long  ones  in  Baltimore  loitering  about 
the  drawing-office  and  shops,  and  at  my  drawing-desk  in  Tom  Winans’ 
house.  We  all  had  boards  with  paper,  carefully  stretched,  which  Jem 
would  cover  with  sketches,  to  our  great  disgust,  obliging  us  to  stretch 
fresh  ones,  but  we  loved  him  all  the  same.  He  would  also  ruin  all 
our  best  pencils,  sketching  not  only  on  the  paper,  but  also  on  the 
smoothly  finished  wooden  backs  of  the  drawing-boards,  which,  I  think, 
he  preferred  to  the  paper  side.  We  kept  some  of  the  sketches  for  a  long 
time.  I  had  a  beauty— a  cavalier  in  a  dungeon  cell,  with  one  small 
window  high  up.  In  all  his  work  at  that  time  he  was  very  Rembrandt - 
esque,  but,  of  course,  only  amateurish.  Nevertheless  he  was  studying 
and  working  out  effects.” 

Whistler  saw  enough  of  the  locomotive  works  to  know  that  he  did 
not  want  to  be  an  apprentice,  and  it  was  not  long  before  he  left  Balti¬ 
more  for  Washington.  To  us  he  spoke  as  if  he  had  gone  to  Washington 
straight  from  West  Point.  He  was  with  us  on  the  evening  of  September 
15,  1900,  after  the  news  had  come  from  the  Iransvaal  of  President 
1854]  27 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Kruger’s  flight,  and  our  talking  of  it  led  him  back  to  West  Point,  and  so 
to  the  story  of  his  days  in  the  service  of  the  Government.  Pie  followed 
the  doer  War  with  intense  interest  : 

The  Boers  are  as  fine  as  the  Southerners— their  fighting  would  be 
no  iscredit  to  West  Point,”  and  he  was  indignant  with  us  for  looking 
upon  Kruger’s  flight  as  diplomatically  a  blunder.  “  Diplomatically 
it  was  right,  you  know,  the  one  thing  Kruger  should  have  done,  just 
as,  m  that  other .  amazing  campaign,  flight  had  been  the  one  thing 
or  Jefferson  Davis,  a  Southern  gentleman  who  had  the  code.  I  shall 
always  remember  the  courtesy  shown  me  by  Jefferson  Davis,  through 
whom  I  got  my  appointment  in  the  Coast  Survey. 

‘‘It  was. after  my  little  difference  with  the  Professor  of  Chemistry 
at  est  Point.  The  Professor  would  not  agree  with  me  that  silicon 
was  a  gas,  but  declared  it  was  a  metal ;  and  as  we  could  come  to  no 
agreement  m  the  matter,  it  was  suggested— all  in  the  most  courteous 
and  correct  West  Point  way-that  perhaps  I  had  better  leave  the 
Academy.  Well,  you  know,  it  was  not  a  moment  for  the  return  of 
the  prodigal  to  his  family  or  for  any  slaying  of  fatted  calves.  I  had 
to  work, .and  I  went  to  Washington.  There  I  called  at  once  on  Jeffer¬ 
son  Davis,  who  was  Secretary  of  War—a  West  Point  man  like  myself. 
He  was  most  charming,  and  I— well,  from  my  Russian  cradle,  I  had  an 
idea  of  things,  and  the  interview  was  in  every  way  correct,  conducted  on 
both  sides  with  the  utmost  dignity  and  elegance.  I  explained  my  un¬ 
fortunate  difference  with  the  Professor  of  Chemistry-represented  that 
the  question  was  one  of  no  vital  importance,  while  on  all  really  im¬ 
portant  questions  I  had  carried  off  more  than  the  necessary  marks. 
My  explanation  made,  I  suggested  that  I  should  be  reinstated  at  West 
Point,  in  which  case,  as  far  as  I  was  concerned,  silicon  should  remain 
a  metal.  The  Secretary,  courteous  to  the  end,  promised  to  consider 
the  matter,  and  named  a  day  for  a  second  interview. 

"  Before  I  went  back  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  I  called  on  the 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  also  a  Southerner,  James  C.  Dobbin,  of  South 
Carolina,  suggesting  that  I  should  have  an  appointment  in  the  Navy. 
The  Secretary  objected  that  I  was  too  young.  In  the  confidence  of 
youth,  I  said  age  should  be  no  objection  ;  I  ‘  could  be  entered  at  the 
Naval  Academy,  and  the  three  years  at  West  Point  could  count  at 
Annapolis.’  The  Secretary  was  interested,  for  he,  too,  had  a  sense  of 
28  [1854 


( See  page  52) 


HEAD  OF  AN  OLD  MAN  SMOKING 

OIL 

I11  the  Mus^e  rlu  Luxembourg 


The  Coast  Survey 


things.  He  regretted,  with  gravity,  the  impossibility.  But  some¬ 
thing  impressed  him ;  for,  later,  he  reserved  one  of  six  appointments 
he  had  to  make  in  the  marines  and  offered  it  to  me.  In  the  meantime, 

I  had  returned  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  who  had  decided  that  it  was 
impossible  to  meet  my  wishes  in  the  matter  of  West  Point  ;  West  Point 
discipline  had  to  be  observed,  and  if  one  cadet  were  reinstated,  a  dozen 
others  who  had  tumbled  out  after  me  would  have  to  be  reinstated 
too.  But  if  I  would  call  on  Captain  Benham,  of  the  Coast  Survey, 
a  post  might  be  waiting  for  me  there.” 

Captain  Benham  was  a  friend  of  his  father,  and  Whistler  was  engaged 
in  the  drawing  division  of  the  United  States  Coast  and  Geodetic  Survey, 
at  the  salary  of  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  day.  This  appointment  he  received 
on  November  7,  1854,  s^x  months  after  he  had  left  West  Point.  There 
was  nothing  to  appeal  to  him  in  the  routine  of  the  office.  What  he 
had  to  do  he  did,  but  with  no  enthusiasm. 

“  I  was  apt  to  be  late,  I  was  so  busy  socially.  I  lived  in  a  small 
room,  but  it  was  amazing  how  I  was  asked  and  went  everywhere — to 
balls,  to  the  Legations,  to  all  that  was  going  on.  Labouchere,  an 
attache  at  the  British  Legation,  has  never  ceased  to  talk  of  me,  so  gay, 
and,  when  I  had  not  a  dress  suit,  pinning  up  the  tails  of  my  frock-coat, 
and  turning  it  into  a  dress-coat  for  the  occasion.  Shocking  1  ” 

Mr.  Labouchere  has  told  this  story  in  a  letter  to  us  :  “I  did  know 
Whistler  very  well  in  America  about  fifty  years  ago.  But  he  was 
then  a  young  man  at  Washington,  who— -if  I  remember  rightly — had 
not  been  able  to  pass  his  examination  at  West  Point  and  had  given 
no  indication  of  his  future  fame.  Pie  was  rather  hard  up,  I  take  it,  for 
I  remember  that  he  pinned  back  the  skirt  of  a  frock-coat  to  make  it 
pass  as  a  dress-coat  at  evening  parties.  Washington  was  then  a  small 
place  compared  with  what  it  is  now,  where  everybody — so  to  say— 
knew  everybody,  and  the  social  parties  were  of  a  simple  character. 
This  is  really  all  that  I  remember  of  Whistler  at  that  time,  except 
that  he  was  thought  witty  and  paradoxically  amusing  !  ” 

But  long  before  something  in  his  dress  drew  attention  to  him. 
Though  he  was  never  seen  in  the  high-standing  collar  and  silk  hat 
of  the  time,  some  remember  him  in  a  Scotch  cap  and  a  plaid  shawl 
thrown  over  his  shoulder,  then  the  fashion  ;  others  recall  a  slouch 
hat  and  cloak,  his  coat,  unbuttoned,  showing  his  waistcoat ;  while 
1854]  29 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

traditions  of  his  social  charm  come  from  every  side.  Adjutant-General 
Breck  is  responsible  for  the  story  of  Whistler  having  invited  the  Russian 
Minister — others  say  the  Charge  d? A ffaires — Edward  de  Stoeckl,  to 
dine  with  him,  carrying  the  Minister  off  in  his  own  carriage,  doing  the 
marketing  by  the  way,  and  cooking  the  dinner  before  his  guest  in  the 
room  where  he  lived.  And  it  has  been  said  that  never  was  the  Minister 
entertained  by  so  brilliant  a  host  while  in  Washington. 

Mr.  John  Ross  Key,  a  fellow  draughtsman  in  the  Coast  Survey, 
says  that  this  room  was  in  a  house  in  Thirteenth  Street,  near  Penn¬ 
sylvania  Avenue,  and  that  Whistler  usually  dined  in  a  restaurant  close 
by,  kept  by  a  Mr.  and  Mrs.  A.  Gautier.  According  to  the  late  A. 
Lindenkohl,  another  fellow  draughtsman,  Whistler  also  lived  for  a  while 
in  a  house  at  the  north-east  corner  of  E.  and  Twelfth  Streets,  a  two- 
storey  brick  building  which  has  lately  been  pulled  down.  He  occupied 
a  plainly  but  comfortably  furnished  room,  for  which  he  paid  ten  dollars 
a  month.  The  office  records  show  that  he  worked  six  and  one-half 
days  in  January,  and  five  and  three-fourths  in  February.  He  usually 
arrived  late,  but,  he  would  say,  it  was  not  his  fault.  I  was  not  too 
late ;  the  office  opened  too  early.”  Lindenkohl  described  an  effort  to 
reform  him  : 

“  Captain  Benham  took  occasion  to  tell  me  that  he  felt  great  interest 
in  the  young  man,  not  only  on  account  of  his  talents,  but  also  on  account 
of  his  father,  and  he  told  me  that  he  would  be  highly  pleased  if  I  could 
induce  Whistler  to  be  more  regular  in  his  attendance.  ‘  Call  at  his 
lodgings  on  your  way  to  the  office,’  he  said,  and  see  if  you  can  t 
bring  him  along.’ 

“  Accordingly,  one  morning,  I  called  at  Whistler’s  lodgings  at 
half-past  eight.  No  doubt  he  felt  somewhat  astonished,  but  received 
me  with  the  greatest  bonhomie ,  invited  me  to  make  myself  at  home, 
and  promised  to  make  all  possible  haste  to  comply  with  my  wishes. 
Nevertheless  he  proceeded  with  the  greatest  deliberation  to  rise  from 
his  couch  and  put  himself  into  shape  for  the  street  and  prepare  his 
breakfast,  which  consisted  of  a  cup  of  strong  coffee  brewed  in  a  steam- 
tight  French  machine,  then  a  novelty,  and  also  insisted  upon  treating 
me  with  a  cup.  We  made  no  extra  haste  on  our  way  to  the  office, 
which  we  reached  about  half-past  ten— an  hour  and  a  half  after  time. 
I  did  not  repeat  the  experiment,” 

30 


[1854 


The  Coast  Survey 

Lindenkohl  said  that  Whistler  spoke  of  Paris  with  enthusiasm,  that 
he  sketched  sometimes  from  the  office  windows,  and  made  studies  of 
people,  taking  the  greatest  interest  in  the  arrangement  and  folds  of 
their  clothes.  Whistler  showed  him  “  several  examples  done  with  the 
brush  in  sepia,  in  old  French  or  Spanish  styles,”  whatever  this  may 
mean.  Mr.  Key  describes  Whistler  as  “  painfully  near-sighted,”  and 
always  sketching,  even  on  the  walls  as  he  went  downstairs.  Though 
in  Washington  only  a  few  months,  he  left  the  impression  of  his  in¬ 
difference  to  work  except  in  the  one  form  in  which  work  interested 

him-— his  art.  _  _ 

If  nothing  else  were  known  of  this  period,  it  would  be  memorable 

for  the  technical  instruction  he  received  in  the  Coast  Survey.  His 
work  was  the  drawing  and  etching  of  Government  topographical  plans 
and  maps,  which  have  to  be  made  with  the  utmost  accuracy  and  sharp¬ 
ness  of  line.  His  training,  therefore,  was  in  the  hardest  and  most  pel  feet 
school  of  etching  in  the  world,  a  fact  never  until  now  pointed  out. 
The  work  was  dull,  mechanical,  and  he  sometimes  relieved  the  dullness 
by  filling  empty  spaces  on  the  plates  with  sketches.  Captain  Benham 
told  him  plainly,  Whistler  said,  that  he  was  not  there  to  spoil  Govern¬ 
ment  coppers,  and  ordered  all  the  designs  to  be  immediately  erased. 
This  was  Whistler’s  account  to  us.  But  Mr.  Key,  in  his  Recollections 
of  Whistler ,  published  in  the  Century  Magazine  (April  1908),  says 
that  these  sketches  were  confined  to  the  experimental  plate  given  to 
Whistler,  as  to  all  beginners,  and  he  adds  that  he  watched  Whistler 
through  the  process  of  preparing  and  etching  it. 

Only  two  plates  have  been  as  yet,  or  probably  ever  will  be,  found 
in  the  office  that  can  be  attributed,  wholly  or  in  part,  to  Whistler  : 
the  Coast  Survey,  No.  1,  and  Coast  Survey,  No.  2,  Anacapa  Island ,  first 
described  in  the  Catalogue  of  the  WhistlerMemorial  Exhibition  in  London, 
1905.  The  Coast  Survey,  No.  I,  is  a  plate  giving  two  parallel  views, 
one  above  the  other,  of  the  coast-line  of  a  rocky  shore,  the  lower  showing 
a  small  town  in  a  deep  bay  with,  below  them  both  to  the  extreme  left, 
a  profile  map.  Whistler  was  unable  to  confine  himself  to  the  Govern¬ 
ment  requirements.  In  the  lowrer  design,  chimneys  are  gaily  smoking, 
and  on  the  upper  part  of  the  plate  several  figures,  obviously  reminiscent 
of  prints  and  drawings,  are  sketched  :  an  old  peasant  woman  ;  a  man  in 
a  tall  Italian  hat,  or,  Mr.  Key  says,  Whistler  himself  as  a  Spanish  hidalgo  ; 
1854]  31 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

another  in  a  Sicilian  bonnet  ;  a  mother  and  child  in  an  oval,  meant  for 
Mrs.  Partington  and  Ike,  as  Mr.  Key  remembers ;  a  battered  French 
soldier  ;  a  bearded  monk  in  a  cowl.  The  drawing  is  schoolboy-like, 
though  it  shows  certain  observation,  but  the  biting  is  remarkable. 
The  little  figures  are  bitten  as  well  and  in  the  same  way  as  La 
V ieille  aux  Loques,  etched  three  or  four  years  afterwards  ;  to  look 
at  them  is  to  know  that  Whistler  was  a  consummate  etcher  technically 
before  he  left  the  Coast  Survey.  There  is  no  advance  in  the  biting  of 
the  French  series.  So  astonishing  is  this  mastery  that,  if  the  technique 
in  some  of  the  French  plates  were  not  similar,  one  would  be  tempted 
to  doubt  whether  Whistler  etched  those  little  figures  in  Washington, 
especially  as  the  plate  is  unsigned.  The  plate  escaped  by  chance. 
Mr.  Key,  to  whom  it  was  given  to  clean  off  and  use  again,  asked  to  keep 
it,  and  it  was  sold  to  him  for  the  price  of  old  copper.  It  is  still  in 
existence. 

The  second  plate,  Anacapa  Island,  is  signed  with  several  names. 
Whistler  etched  the  view  of  the  eastern  extremity  of  the  island,  for 
many  lines  on  the  rocky  shore  resemble  the  work  in  the  French  series, 
and  also  the  two  flights  of  birds  which,  though  they  enliven  the  design, 
have  no  topographical  value.  This  plate  was  finished  and  published 
in  the  Report  of  the  Superintendent  of  the  Coast  Survey,  1855.  There 
is  said  to  be  a  third  plate,  a  chart  of  the  Delaware  River,  but  we  have 
never  seen  it  and  can  find  out  nothing  about  it. 

One  other  record  of  Whistler  at  the  Coast  Survey  remains,  but  of 
a  different  kind.  He  liked '’to  tell  the  story.  Captain  Benham  used 
to  come  and  look  through  the  small  magnifying  glass  each  draughtsman 
in  this  department  had  to  work  with.  One  day,  Whistler  etched  a 
little  devil  on  the  glass,  and  Captain  Benham  looked  through  it  at  the 
plate.  Whistler  described  himself  to  us,  lying  full  length  on  a  sort  of 
mattress  or  trestle,  so  as  not  to  touch  the  copper.  But  he  saw  Captain 
Benham  give  a  jump.  The  Captain  said  nothing.  He  pocketed  the 
glass,  and  that  was  all  Whistler  heard  of  it  until  many  years  afterwards, 
when,  one  day,  an  old  gentleman  appeared  at  his  studio  in  Paris,  and 
by  way  of  introduction  took  from  his  watch-chain  a  tiny  magnifying 
glass,  and  asked  Whistler  to  look  through  it— “  and,”  he  said,  “  well— 
we  recognised  each  other  perfectly.” 

Captain  Benham  is  dead,  but  his  son,  Major  H.  H.  Benham,  writes 
32  [1855 


(See  page  43  ) 


STREET  AT  SAVERNE 

ETCHING.  G.  19 


Student  Days  in  the  Latin  Quarter 

us  :  “  I  have  heard  my  father  tell  the  story.  He  was  very  fond  of 
Whistler,  and  thought  most  highly  of  his  great  ability— or  rat  er 

genius,  I  should  say.”  ,  _  0 

Genius  like  Whistler’s  served  him  as  little  at  the  Coast  Survey 
at  West  Point.  He  resigned  in  February  185 5-  His  brother  George 
Whistler,  and  Mr.  Winans  tried  again  to  make  him  enter  the  locomo¬ 
tive  works  in  Baltimore.  He  was  twenty-one,  old  enough  to  insist 
upon  what  he  wanted,  and  what  he  wanted  was  to  study  art.  Already 
at  St.  Petersburg  his  ability  had  struck  his  mother  s  friends.  At 
Pomfret  and  West  Point  he  owed  to  his  drawing  whatever  distinction 
he  had  attained.  And  there  had  been  things  done  outside  of  school 
and  Academy  and  office  work,  he  told  u*-“  portraits  of  my  cousin 
Annie  Denny  and  of  Tom  Winans,  and  many  paintings  at  Stomngton 
that  Stonington  people  remembered  so  well  they  looked  me  up  in 
Paris  afterwards.  Indeed,  all  the  while,  ever  since  my  Russian  days, 
there  had  been  always  the  thought  of  art,  and  when  at  last  I  told l  he 
family  that  I  was  going  to  Paris,  they  said  nothing.  There  was  no  di  - 
culty.  They  just  got  me  a  ticket.  I  was  to  have  three  hundred  and  fifty 

dollars  (seventy  pounds)  a  year,  andmy  stepbrother,  George  Whistler,  who 

was  one  of  my  guardians,  sent  it  to  me  after  that  every  quarter. 


CHAPTER  VI :  STUDENT  DAYS  IN  THE  LATIN  QUARTER. 
THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-FIVE  TO  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY- 

NINE. 

Whistler  arrived  in  Paris  in  the  summer  of  1855.  There  he  fell 
among  friends.  The  American  Legation  was  open  to  the  son  ol 
Major  Whistler.  It  was  the  year  of  the  first  International  Exhibition, 
and  Sir  Henry  Cole,  the  British  Commissioner,  the  Thackerays  and  the 
Hadens  were  there.  Lady  Ritchie  (Miss  Thackeray)  writes  : 

“  I  wish  I  had  a  great  deal  more  to  tell  you  about -Whistler, 
always  enjoyed  talking  to  him  when  we  were  both  hobbledehoys  at 
Paris  ;  he  used  to  ask  me  to  dance,  and  rather  to  my  disappointment 
perhaps,  for,  much  as  I  liked  talking  to  him,  I  preferred  dancing,  we 
used  to  stand  out  while  the  rest  of  the  party  polkaed  and  waltzed  by. 
There  was  a  certain  definite  authority  in  the  things  he  said,  even  as 

1855]  C  33 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

a  b°y  l  remember  what  they  were,  but  I  somehow  realised 
at  what  he  said  mattered.  When  I  heard  afterwards  of  his  fanciful 
freaks  and  quirks,  I  could  not  fit  them  in  with  my  impression  of  the 
wise  young  oracle  of  my  own  age.” 

George  Whistler  wanted  him  to  go  to  the  Ecole  des  Beaux-Arts, 
but  there  is  no  record  of  his  having  been  admitted.  He  went  instead 
to  the  studio  Gleyre  inherited  from  Delaroche  and  handed  on  to 
G6rome,  which  drew  to  it  all  the  students  who  did  not  crowd  to 

?? tUf  ^  A7  Scheffer-  ^  was  not  extraordinary,  as  some  have 
said,  that  Whistler  should  have  gone  there  ;  it  would  have  been  extra- 
ordmary  had  he  stayed  away.  He  arrived  in  Paris  when  Courbet, 

8  ^tfd  at  the  International,  was  defying  convention  with  his  first  show 
and  his  first  Manifesto,”  and  many  of  the  younger  men  were  throwing 
over  Romanticism  for  Realism.  Whistler  found  himself  more  in 
sympathy  with  the  followers  of  Courbet  than  with  Gleyre’s  pupils 
and  he  became  so  intimate  with  the  group,  among  whom  were  Fantin 
and  Degas,  who  studied  under  Lecocq  de  Boisbaudran,  that  it  is  some- 
times  thought  he  must  have  worked  in  that  school.  But  on  his 
arrival,  m  Pans  the  young  American  had  heard  neither  of  Lecocq 
de  Boisbaudran  nor  Courbet,  and  Gleyre  was  the  popular  teacher 
bantm-Latour  and  M'  Duret  both  have  said  that  they  seldom  heard 
Whistler  speak  of  Gleyre’s.  When  we  asked  him  about  it,  he  only 
recalled  the  dignified  principles  upon  which  it  was  conducted.  There 
was  not  even  the  case  of  the  nouveau,  “  If  a  man  was  a  decent  fellow, 
and  would  sing  his  song,  and  take  a  little  chaff,  he  had  no  trouble  ” 
Whistler  could  remember  only  one  disagreeable  incident,  in  con¬ 
nection,  not  with  a  nouveau ,  but  an  unpopular  student  who  had  been 
there  some  time  and  put  on  airs.  One  morning,  Whistler  told  us,  he 
came  to  the  studio  late,  “  and  there  were  all  the  students  working 
away  very  hard,  the  unpopular  one  among  them,  and  there  at 
the  end  of  the  room,  on  the  model’s  stand  was  an  enormous  cata¬ 
falque,  the  unpopular  one’s  name  on  it  in  big  letters.  And  no  one 

said  a  word.  But  that  killed  him.  He  was  never  again  seen  in  the 
place.” 

Gleyre  was  by  no  means  colourless  as  a  teacher.  He  is  remembered 
as  the  successor  of  David  and  the  Classicists,  but  he  held  theories 
disquieting  to  academic  minds.  He  taught  that  before  a  picture  was 

34  [1855 


Student  Days  In  the  Latin  Quarter 

begun  the  colours  should  be  arranged  on  the  palette  :  in.  this  way, 
he  said,  difficulties  were  overcome,  for  attention  could  be  given  solely 
to  the  drawing  and  modelling  on  canvas  in  colour.  He  taught  also 
that  ivory-black  is  the  base  of  tone.  Upon  this  preparation  of  the 
palette  and  this  base  of  black-upon  black,  “  the  universal  harmonise! r  ” 
—Whistler  founded  his  practice  as  painter,  and  as  teacher  when  he 
visited  the  pupils  of  the  Academic  Carmen.  As  he  has  told  us  over 
and  over  again,  his  practice  of  a  lifetime  was  derived  from  what  he 
learned  in  the  schools,  and  the  master’s  methods  he  never  abandoned. 
He  only  developed  methods,  misunderstood  by  those  British  prophets 
who  have  said  he  had  but  enough  knowledge  for  his  own  needs. 

Whistler  spoke  often  to  us  of  the  men  he  met  at  Gleyre’s  :  Poynter, 
Du  Maurier,  Lament,  Joseph  Rowley.  Leighton,  m  1855,  was 
studying  at  Couture’s,  developing  his  theory  that  “  the  best  dodge 
is  to  be  a  devil  of  a  clever  fellow,”  and  Mrs.  Barrington  says  he  made 
Whistler’s  acquaintance  at  the  time  and  admired  Whistler’s  etchings. 
But  Whistler  never  recalled  Leighton  among  his  fellow  students, 
though  he  spoke  often  with  affection  of  Thomas  Armstrong,  who  worked 
at  Ary  Scheffer’s,  and  Aleco  lonides,  not  an  art  student  but  studying, 
no  one  seemed  to  know  what  or  where.  This  is  the  group  in 
Du  Maurier’s  novel  of  Paris  student  life,  Trilby.  It  is  regrettable 
that  Du  Maurier  cherished  his  petty  spite  against  Whistler  for  twenty- 
five  years  and  then  printed  it,  and  so  wrecked  what  Whistler  imagined 
a  genuine  friendship.  Lament,  “the  Laird,”  Rowley,  the  “Taffy,” 
Aleco  lonides,  “the  Greek,”  and  Thomas  Armstrong  are  dead.  Sir 
Edward  J.  Poynter  remains,  and  also  Mr.  Luke  lonides,  who  was  then 
often  in  Paris.  He  has  given  us  his  impressions  of  Whistler  at  the  time  . 

“  I  first  knew  Jimmie  Whistler  in  the  month  of  August  1855.  My 
younger  brother  was  with  a  tutor,  and  had  made  friends  with  Jimmie. 
He  was  just  twenty-one  years  old,  full  of  life  and  go,  always  ready  for 
fun,  good-natured  and  good-tempered.  He  wore  a  peculiar  straw  hat, 
slightly  on  the  side  of  his  head- it  had  a  low  crown  and  a  broad 

brim.” 

Whistler  etched  himself  in  this  hat,  which  startled  even  artists 
and  students,  and  became  a  legend  in  the  Latin  Quarter. 

Mr.  Rowley  wrote  us  :  “  It  was  in  1857-8  that  I  knew  Whistler, 

*  See  Chapter  XLIV. 


1857] 


35 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

HaV  thirt  atoUfng,  and  eccentric  Mow  he  was,  with  his  long 

r“  0;  “dT7!  ’  “2  krge  *“*  With  a  broad  blaX 

round  it.  I  remember  on  the  wall  of  the  atelier  was  a 

representation  of  him,  I  believe  done  by  Du  Marnier  a  t  tch  o 

h.m,  then  a  fainter  one,  and  then  merely  a  note  of  interrogation 

-very  clever  ,t  was  and  very  like  the  original.  In  those  days  he 

painted  T  ^a  1  W  3  faint  recollection  of  seeing  a^head 

P  1  7  lm  m  deep  Rembrandtish  tones  which  was  thought 

nitimseS  1  bHr,r always  smoting  -St 

j  ,  ,  ’  and  hlb  dro11  sa7lngs  caused  us  no  end  of  fun  I 

taken  a  nT  "  Sta7ed  long  in/n^  rooms-  One  day  he  told  us  he  had 

,  ,  ,  W  and  he  was  fi«ing  it  up  feu  d  feu,  and  he  had  already 

got  *  tablet  znd  a  chair.  He  told  mf  tales?of  being  invhed  o  a 
reception  at  the  American  Minister’s,  but,  as  he  had  no  dress  suit 

hL8bo“’s  So  h  t0  bT  PTf’S’  Wh°  fi“ed  him  °Ut’  a11  ortcept 
•  o  he  waited  until  the  guests  at  the  hotel  had  retired 

them  ^tiTT '  r0U\d. the  corridors.  found  what  he  wanted,  and  left 

wav  he  ,„L  T  “  bS  r,etUrn'  II  Was  more  his  manner  and  the  clever 
way  he  told  the  tale  that  amused  us.  .  .  .  I  have  his  first  twelve 

that  yfar  “iff  h'  d‘d  “  (l8s8j  1  never  saw  him  after  I  left  Paris 
that  year.  He  was  never  a  friend  of  mine,  and  it  was  only  occasionally 

he  came  to  see  us  at  the  atelier  in  Notre-Dame-des-Champs.”  7 

Whistler  was  intimate  for  awhile  with  Sir  Edward  J.  Poynter,  who 

the1"  IdkT  t0  haVe„unTderatood  ldm-  To  Poynter  Whistler  was 
Ran  Idk,.AP?,rentlce-  !n  fits  speech  at  the  first  Royal  Academy 
Banquet  (April  3o,  ,904)  after  Whistler’s  death,  Poynter  said^ 

line  "b™  Veny  TlmftC,y  ‘n  Whistler’s  company  in  early  days,  I 

be  ralfT  ^  ^  be  was  a  stude«  “  Paris-that  is,  if  he  could 
be  called  a  student,  who,  to  my  knowledge,  during  the  two  or  three 

years  when  I  was  associated  with  him,  devoted  hardly  as  many  weeks 
to  study  His  genius,  however,  found  its  way  in  spite  of  an  excess 
the  natural  indolence  of  disposition  and  love  of  pleasure  of  which 
A  Trhn  bhare.  haS  ^e”  'he  heredi‘ary  attribute  of  the  art  student.” 

British  Officia0!  An  “e  ™  ^  **  “ibute  to  Us  Paid 

Whi;rrleIuTS  wholIh  one  of  us,”  Armstrong  told  us. 

Whistler  laughed  at  the  Englishmen  and  their  ways,  above  all  at  the 

3  [1857 


( See  page  44) 


SKETCHES  OF  THE  JOURNEY  TO  ALSACE 
PEN  DRAWINGS 


Student  Days  in  the  Latin  Quarter 

boxing  and  sparring  matches  in  their  studios  ;  “  he  could  not  see 
why  they  didn’t  hire  the  concierges  to  do  their  fighting  for  them 
But  he  understood  the  French,  and  they  understood  him  He  could 
speak  their  language,  he  knew  Murger  by  heart  before  he  came  to 
Paris,  and  there  got  to  know  him  personally.  Mr.  Ionides  says  that 
once,  on  the  rive  gauche ,  they  met  Murger,  and  Whistler  introduced 
him  Whistler  delighted  in  the  humour  and  picturesqueness  of  it, 
and  was  always  quoting  Murger.  The  Englishmen  at  Gleyre’s  were 
puzzled  by  him  and  his  “  no  shirt  friends  ”  as  he  called  one  group  of 
students.  Every  now  and  then  they  palled,  even  on  him,  and  he 
would  then  tell  the  Englishmen  that  he  “  must  give  up  the  no  shirt 
set  and  begin  to  live  cleanly.”  The  end  came  when,  during  an  absence 
from  Paris,  he  lent  them  his  room,  luxurious  from  the  student  stand¬ 
point,  with  a  tin  bath  and  blue  china.  The  “  no  shirt  friends  could 
not  change  their  habits  with  their  surroundings.  They  made  grogs  in 
the  bath  ;  they  never  washed  a  plate,  but,  when  one  side  was  dirty, 
ate  off  the  other,  and  Whistler  had  not  bargained  to  make  his  room 
the  background  for  a  new  chapter  in  the  Vie  de  Boheme.  But  this 
was  later,  after  his  adventures  with  them  had  been  the  gossip  of  the 
Quarter,  and  had  confirmed  the  diligent  English  in  their  impressions 

of  his  idleness. 

Among  the  French  he  made  friends  :  Aubert,  the  first  man  he  knew 
in  Paris,  a  clerk  in  the  Credit  Foncier  ;  Fantin  ;  Legros  ;  Becquet, 
a  musician  ;  Henri  Martin,  son  of  the  historian  ;  Drouet,  the  sculptor  ; 
Henry  Oulevey  and  Ernest  Delannoy,  painters.  From  Fantin  we  have 
notes  made  just  before  his  death.  Legros  prefers  to  remember  nothing, 
the  friendship  in  his  case  ending  many  years  ago.  Drouet  and  Ou  evey 
have  told  us  almost  as  much  as  Whistler  did  of  those  days.  When 
Oulevey  first  knew  him,  Whistler  lived  in  a  little  hotel  m  the  Rue 
St.  Sulpice  ;  then  he  moved  to  No.  I  Rue  Bourbon-le-Chateau, 
near  St.  Germain-des-Pres  ;  and  then  to  No.  3  ue  ampagne 
Premiere,  where  Drouet  had  a  studio.  When  remittances  ran  out, 
he  climbed  six  flights  and  shared  a  garret  with  Delannoy,  the 

Ernest  of  the  stories  Whistler  liked  best  to  tell. 

Mr.  Miles  writes  us  that  he  came  to  Pans  m  May  1857  with 
letters  from  Whistler’s  family  and  a  draft  for  him  :  At  the  Beaux- 
Arts  he  was  not  to  be  found,  but  I  got  his  address.  He  had  gone  from 

1857]  37 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

that.  I  was  in  despair,  but  went  to  the  Luxembourg,  hoping  to  find 
ome  trace  of  him.  In  looking  at  a  picture,  I  backed  into  fn  easel 
heard  a  muttered  damn  behind  me-and  there  was  Whistler 

up”te”Sflirht  y'  •°°k  me-‘°  h‘S  <luarters  in  a  I;ttle  back  street, 
up  ten  flights  of  sta,rs-a  tiny  room  with  brick  floor,  a  cot  bed 

a  chair  on  which  were  a  basin  and  pitcher-and  that  was  all  ' 

We  sat  on  the  cot  and  talked  as  cheerfully  as  if  in  a  palace-and  he 

got  the  draft.  ‘  Now,’  said  he,  ‘  I  shall  move  downstairs,  and  begin 

afl  over-furmsh  my  room  comfortably.  You  see,  I  have  just  eaten 

my  washstand  and  borrowed  a  little,  hoping  the  draft  would  arrive. 

.  living  for  some  time  on  my  wardrobe.  You  are  just  in 

■me ;  don  t  know  what  I  should  have  done,  but  it  often  happens  this 

way.  first  eat  a  wardrobe,  and  then  move  upstairs  a  flight  or  two 

but  se.dom  get  so  high  as  this  before  the  draft  comes  !  ’  How  true 

thlr  "J  T  ‘  Say’  nU‘  ltLSOTnds  Pr°bable  and  very  like  Whistler  at 
that  age  he  was  then  about  twenty-three  or  just  twenty-four  at 

most  _  May  1857.  Then  Whistler  showed  me  Paris  :  I  mefsome  of 

ffinnr'hr  frKndS'  1  rem'mber  only  Lambert  (French)  and  Poynter 
(£ngltsh)rnow  a  great  swell.  Whistler  didn’t  care  much  for  Poynter 

m  ,  bUt  WaS  W‘tty  a"d  amusing,  as  usual.  He  dined  with 

me  at  the  best  restaurant  in  Paris,  which  he  had  not  done  for  a  long 
time,  and  dined  me,  the  next  day,  at  a  little  cremerie  to  show  what 
“  usual  fare  had  been,  and,  indeed,  usually  was  when  the  time  was 
approaching  for  the  arrival  of  his  allowance.” 

Ihe  restaurant  to  which  Whistler  and  his  friends  usually  went 

bottle '  IT"'*5;  “S  I"  3  WOnderfuI  Burg™dy  at  one  franc  the 
e  h  «{,|  vert,  ordered  on  great  occasions,  and  more  famous 

now  for  B,b,  Lahurtt,  the  subject  of  the  etching,  the  child  of  the 

Ir  Tt'  ^  Tte’  lke  Srn  at  Barbhon>  understood  artists,  and  gave 
franc!’  Wb‘S'  when  he  left  Pans,  owed  Lalouette  three  thousand 
rancs,  every  sou  of  which  was  paid,  though  it  took  a  long  time. 
To-day,  unfortunately,  such  debts  ate  not  always  discharged,  and  the 
charmmg  system  of  other  days  exists  no  longer.  They  also  dined 
«  Mtta,  kl,*,,,  in  the  Place  de  h  Sorbonne _  a  cr.mr.e 

where  Whistler  once  gave  a  dinner  to  the  American  Consul,  and  invited 

l^“,Th0n’  the  daughter  of  the  hous=.  and  bought  her  a  new  hat 
or  the  occasion-— a  tremendous  sensation  through  the  Quarter. 

3  [1857 


Student  Days  in  the  Latin  Quarter 
Drouet  did  not  think  that  Whistler  worked  much.  “  He  was 

eve";  evening  at  the  students’  balls,  and  never  got  up  unttl  eUven 

or  twelve  in  the  morning,  so  where  was  the  time  for  work  i  Oulevey 
cannot  remember  his  doing  much  at  Gleyre’s,  or  in  ^e  Luxembourg 
or  at  the  Louvre,  but  he  was  always  drawing  the  people  and  the  =«ne 
o  th  Quarter.  In  the  memory  of  both  his  work  is  overshadowed 
by  his  gaiety  and  his  wit,  his  blague,  his  charm  :  “  tout  a  fan  un  homme 
1  tan"  is  Oulevey’s  phrase,  with  "  un  cteur  ie  femme  et  une  mUmte 
/homme."  Anything  might  be  expected  of  him,  and  Drouet  added 
that  he  was  quick  to  resent  an  insult,  always  "un  petit  wgwr.  <*>g 
Boughton,  of  a  younger  generation,  when  he  came  to  the  Quarter 
found  that  all  stories  of  larks  were  put  down  to  Whistler. 

IOno  HeW;is“  great  favourite  among  us  all,  and  also  among  the  grisettee 
we  used  to  meet  at  the  gardens  where  dancing  went  on.  remem  “ 
one  especially — they  called  her  the  Tigresse.  She  seemed  madly  l 
love  with  Jimmie  and  would  not  allow  any  other  woman  to  talk  to  him 
when  she  was  present.  She  sat  to  him  several  times  with  her  cur  y 
hair  down  her  back.  She  had  a  good  voice,  and  I  often  thought  she 

a  Wh°dtneW 

Musset  by  heart  and  recited  his  verses  to  Whistler,  and  who  one  day  in 

a  rage  tore  up,  not  his  etchings  as  Mr.  Wedmore  says,  as  0  ten,  wrongly, 

but  his  drawings.  Whistler  was  living  in  the  Rue  Sn  Svdpice  and  h 

day  he  came  home  and  found  the  pieces  plied  high  on  the  table  he 

We  Another  figure  was  La  Mire  Gerard.  She  was  old  and  almost 
blind  was  said  to  have  written  verse,  and  so  come  down  m  the  world 
She  sold  violets  and  matches  at  the  gate  of  the  L«=mbourg.  She  was 
very  paintable  as  she  sat  huddled  up  on  the  steps,  and  he  got  her  to 
pose  for  him  many  times.  She  said  she  had  a  tapeworm,  and  if  in  the 
Ldio  he  asked  her  what  she  would  eat  or  drink,  her  answer  was 
■'  Du  lait :  il  aime  f  a  l  ”  They  used  to  chaff  him  about  her  in  the 
Quarter.  Once,  Lalouette  invited  all  his  clients  to  spend  a  day  in  the 
country,  and  Whistler  accepted  on  condition  that  he  could  ring 
La  Mere  Gerard.  She  arrived,  got  up  in  style,  sat  at  his  side  in  the 
carriage  in  which  they  all  drove  off,  and  grew  l.veher  as  the  day 

1857]  9 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

went  on.  He  painted  het  in  the  aftetnoon  :  the  portrait  a  success 

ThenTTil  'n  '°a  ’  bM  fcSt  t0°k  baCt  th"  finish 

Then  he  fell  ,11  and  was  sent  to  England.  When  he  returned  and  saw 

the  portrait  again,  he  thought  it  too  good  for  La  Mere  Girard  He 

made  a  cop y  for  the  old  lady,  who  saw  the  difference  and  was  furious 

The  Im8  u  TJ,  7  g  PaM  the  Lu«mh°nrg  with  Lament. 

,,  rf  ,WOman’  huddled  on  the  steps,  did  not  look  up  : 

Madame  Girard,  comment  ;a  vaf"  Lamont  asked. 

Assez  bien ,  Monsieur ,  assez  blend’ 

“  Et  votre  petit  Amiricain  F 

To  which  she  replied,  not  looking  up,  “  Lui  F  On  dit  qu'il  a 
craqui!  Encore  une  espece  de  canaille  de  moins  !  ” 

i  •  A?d  “  !aUf)^d’  *nd  she  knew  him,  as  so  many  were  to  know 
him,  by  that  laugh  all  his  life, 

AnJtT-38'5  t,fter’rln  ^  Quarter>  he  was  “lied  “  Esfeee  de  canaille." 
And  this  is  where  Du  Mauner  got  the  story  which  he  tells  in  Trilby- 
as  he  got  all  Trilby ,  in  fact.  y 

Another  character  in  the  Quarter  of  whom  Whistler  never  tired 

“?  was  Count  de  Montezuma,  the  delightful,  inimitable 
possible,  incredible  Montezuma,  not  a  student,  not  a  painter,  but 
one  after  Whistler’s  heart.  He  never  had  a  sou.  but  always  cheek 
enough  to  see  him  through.  Whistler  told  us  of  him  : 

This  is  the  sort  of  thing  he  would  do,  and  with  an  air-amazing  » 

He  started  one  day  for  Charenton  on  the  steamboat,  his  pockets  as 
usual,  empty,  and  he  was  there  for  as  long  as  he  could  stay.  The  boat 
roke  down,  a  sergent  de  ville  came  on  board  and  ordered  every¬ 
body  off  except  the  captain  and  his  family,  who  happened  to  be  with 
him  The  Montezuma  paid  no  attention.  With  arms  crossed,  he 
walked  up  and  down,  looking  at  no  one.  They  waited,  but  he  walked 
on,  up  and  down,  up  and  down,  looking  at  no  one.  The  sergent  de  ville 
repeated  ^  le  monde  d  terre  !  ’  The  Montezuma  gave  no  sign 

*he  ser&ent  de  Vllle  asked  at  last.  '  Je  suis  de  lafamille'  ’ 
said  the  Montezuma  Opposite,  staring  at  him,  stood  the  captain 
wi  h  his  wife  and  children.  '  You  see,’  said  the  sergent  de  ville,  ‘  the 
captain  does  not  know  you,  he  says  you  are  not  of  the  family.  You 

must  g°.  Moid  and  the  Montezuma  drew  himself  up  proudly 
Moi!  ]e  suis  le  bdtardJ  ’  ”  ^ 

4° 


[1857 


** 


( See  page  50) 


PORTRAIT  OF  WHISTLER 

ETCHING.  G.  54 


Student  Days  in  the  Latin  Quarter 
Though  he  was  frequently  hard  up,  Whistler’s  income  seemed 
princely  to  students  who  lived  on  nothing.  When  there  was  money 
in  his  pockets,  Mr.  Ionides  says,  he  spent  it  royally  on  others 
his  pockets  were  empty,  he  managed  to  refill  them  m  a  way  that  sti 
amazes  Oulevey,  who  told  us  of  the  night  when  after  the  cafe  where 
they  had  squandered  their  last  sous  on  kirsch  had  closed,  he  and  Lamber 
and  Whistler  adjourned  to  the  Halles  for  supper,  ordered  the  best, 
and  ate  it  Then  he  and  Lambert  stayed  in  the  restaurant  as  hostages, 
while  Whistler,  at  dawn,  went  off  to  find  the  money.  .  He  was  back 
when  they  awoke,  with  three  or  four  hundred  francs  in  his  pocket. 
He  had  been  to  see  an  American  friend,  he  said,  a  painter :  .  n  ° 

you  know,  he  had  the  bad  manners  to  abuse  the  situation  ;  he  insisted 

on  my  looking  at  his  pictures  !  _ 

There  were  times  when  everybody  failed,  even  Mr.  Lucas,  George 
Whistler’s  friend,  who  was  living  in  Paris  and  often  came  to  his  rescue. 
One  summer  day  he  pawned  his  coat  when  he  was  penniless  and  wanted 
an  iced  drink  in  a  buvette  across  the  way  from  his  rooms  in  Rue  Bourbon- 
le-Chateau.  “  What  would  you  ?  ”  he  said.  “  It  is  warm  .  And 
for  the  next  two  or  three  days  he  went  in  shirt-sleeves.  rom  .  r. 
Ionides  we  have  heard  how  Whistler  and  Ernest  Delannoy  carried 
their  straw  mattresses  to  the  nearest  Mont-de-Piete ,  stumbling  up 
three  flights  of  stairs  under  them,  and  were  refused  an  advance  by  the 
man  at  the  window.  “  Vest  bien,”  said  Ernest  with  his  grandest 
air.  “  C'est  bien.  J'enverraiun  commissionnaire  !  ”  And  they  dropped 
the  mattresses  and  walked  out  with  dignity,  to  go  bedless  home.  Then 
there  was  a  bootmaker  to  whom  Whistler  owed  money,  and  who  appeared 
with  his  bill,  refusing  to  move  unless  he  was  paid.  Whistler  was  courtesy 
itself,  and,  regretting  his  momentary  embarrassment,  begge  t  e  oot 
maker  to  accept  an  engraving  of  Garibaldi,  which  he  ventured  to  admire. 
The  bootmaker  was  so  charmed  that  he  spoke  no  more  o  is  1  ,  ut 
took  another  order  on  the  spot,  and  made  new  shoes  into  the  bargain. 

Many  of  the  things  told  of  Whistler  he  used  to  tell  us  of  Ernest 
or  the  others.  Ernest  he  said  it  was,  though  some  say  it  was  Whistler, 
who  had  a  commission  to  copy  in  the  Louvre,  but  no  canvas,  paints, 
or  brushes,  and  not  a  sou  to  buy  them  with.  However,  he  went  to 
the  gallery  in  the  morning,  the  first  to  arrive,  and  his  businesslike 
air  disarmed  the  gardien  as  he  picked  out  an  easel,  a  clean  canvas,  a 
1857]  41 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

palette,  a  brush  or  two,  and  a  stick  of  charcoal.  He  wrote  his  name  in 
large  letters  on  the  back  of  the  canvas,  and,  when  the  others  began  to 
drop  in,  was  too  busy  to  see  anything  but  his  work.  Presently  there 
was  a  row.  What  !  an  easel  missing,  a  canvas  gone,  brushes  not  to 
be  found !  The  gardien  bustled  round.  Everybody  talked  at  once. 
Ernest  looked  up  in  a  fury— shameful  !  Why  should  he  be  disturbed  ? 
What  was  it  all  about,  anyhow  ?  When  he  heard  what  had  happened 
no  one  was  louder.  It  had  come  to  a  pretty  pass  in  the  Louvre  when 
you  couldn’t  leave  your  belongings  overnight  without  having  them 
stolen  !  Things  at  last  quieted  down.  Ernest  finished  his  charcoal 
sketch,  but  his  palette  was  bare.  Pie  stretched,  jumped  down  from  his 
high  stool,  strolled  about,  stopped  to  criticise  here,  to  praise  there, 
until  he  saw  the  colours  he  needed.  The  copy  of  the  man  who  owned 
them  ravished  him.  Astonishing  !  He  stepped  back  to  see  it  better. 
He  advanced  to  look  at  the  original,  he  grew  excited,  he  gesticulated. 
The  man,  who  had  never  been  noticed  before,  grew  excited  too. 
Ernest  talked  the  faster,  gesticulated  the  more,  until  down  came  his 
thumb  on  the  white  or  the  blue  or  the  red  he  wanted,  and,  with  another 
sweep  of  his  arm,  a  lump  of  it  was  on  his  palette.  Farther  on  another 
supply  offered.  In  the  end,  his  palette  well  set,  he  went  back  to  his 
easel,  painting  his  copy.  In  some  way  he  had  supplied  himself  most 
plentifully  with  “  turps,”  so  that  several  times  the  picture  was  in  danger 
of  running  off  his  canvas  At  last  it  was  finished  and  shown  to  his 
patron,  who  refused  to  have  it.  Whistler  succeeded  in  selling  it  for 
Ernest  to  a  dealer  ;  and,  Do  you  know,”  he  said,  “  I  saw  the  picture 
years  afterwards,  and  I  think  it  was  rather  better  than  the  original  !  ” 
Oulevey’s  version  is  that  Whistler  helped  himself  to  a  box  of  colours, 
and,  when  discovered  by  its  owner,  was  all  innocence  and  surprise 
and  apology  :  why,  he  supposed,  of  course,  the  boxes  of  colour  were 
there  for  the  benefit  of  students. 

On  another  occasion,  when  Ernest,  according  to  Whistler,  had 
finished  a  large  copy  of  Veronese’s  Marriage  Feast  at  Cana ,  he  and  a 
friend,  carrying  it  between  them,  started  out  to  find  a  buyer.  They 
crossed  the  Seine  and  offered  it  for  five  hundred  francs  to  the  big 
dealers  on  the  right  bank.  Then  they  offered  it  for  two  hundred  and 
fifty  to  the  little  dealers  on  the  left.  Then  they  went  back  and  offered 
it  for  one  hundred  and  twenty-five.  Then  they  came  across  and  offered 
42  [1857 


Student  Days  in  the  Latin  Quarter 

it  for  seventy-five.  And  back  again  for  twenty-five,  and  over  once 
more  for  ten.  And  they  were  crossing  still  again,  to  try  to  get  rid  of 
it  for  five,  when,  on  the  Pont  des  Arts,  an  idea  :  they  lifted  it ;  “  Un, 
they  said  with  a  great  swing,  “  deux,  trois,  v'lan  !  ”  and  over  it  went 
into  the  river.  There  was  a  cry  from  the  crowd,  a  rush  to  their  side 
of  the  bridge,  ser gents  de  ville  came  running,  omnibuses  and  cabs 
stopped  on  both  banks,  boats  pushed  out.  It  was  an  immense  success, 
and  they  went  home  enchanted. 

Ernest  was  Whistler’s  companion  in  the  most  wonderful  adventure 
of  all,  the  journey  to  Alsace  when  most  of  the  French  Set  of  etchings 
were 'made.  Mr.  Luke  lonides  thinks  it  was  in  1856.  Fantm,  who 
did  not  meet  Whistler  until  1858,  remembered  him  just  back  from  a 
journey  to  the  Rhine,  coming  to  the  Cafe  Mohere,  and  showing  the 
etchings  made  on  the  way.  The  French  Set  was  published  in  November 
of  that  year,  and  if  Whistler  returned  late  in  the  autumn,  the  senes 
could  scarcely  have  appeared  so  soon.  However,  more  important 
than  the  date  is  the  fact  that  on  this  journey  the  Liver  dun,  the  Street 
at  Saverne,  and  The  Kitchen  were  etched.  He  had  made  somehow 
two  hundred  and  fifty  francs,  and  he  and  Ernest  started  out  for  Nancy 
and  Strasburg.  Mr.  Leon  Dabo  tells  us  that  his  father  was  a  fellow 
student  of  Whistler’s  at  Gleyre’s  and  lived  at  Saverne,  now  Zabern,  in 
Alsace,  and  that  it  was  to  see  him  Whistler  went  there.  And  from  Mr. 
Dabo  we  have  the  story  of  excursions  that  Whistler  and  Ernest  made 
with  his  father  and  several  friends  :  one  to  the  ruins  of  the  castle 
near  the  village  of  Dabo,  now  Dagsbourg,  where  it  is  said  their 
signatures  may  still  be  seen  on  a  rock  of  brown  sandstone  ;  another  to 
Gross  Geroldseck,  and  the  sketches  Whistler  made  there  were  after¬ 
wards  presented  to  the  Zabern  Museum.  It  may  be  that  a  third 
excursion  was  to  Pfalzburg,  the  birthplace  of  Erckmann  and  Chatnan, 
whom  Whistler  knew  and  possibly  then  met  for  the  first  time. 

On  the  way  back,  at  Cologne,  one  morning,  Whistler  and  Ernest 
woke  up  to  find  their  money  gone.  “  What  is  to  be  done  ?  asked 
Ernest.  “  Order  breakfast,”  said  Whistler,  which  they  did.  There 
was  no  American  Consul  in  the  town,  and  after  breakfast  he  wrote  to 
everybody  who  might  help  him  :  to  a  fellow  student  he  had  asked  to 
forward  letters  from  Paris,  to  Seymour  Haden  in  London,  to  Amsterdam, 
where  he  thought  letters  might  have  been  sent  by  mistake.  Then 
1858]  43 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

they  settled  down  to  wait.  Every  day  they  would  go  to  the  post-office 
for  letters,  every  day  the  official  would  say,  “  Nichts !  Nichts  '  ” 
until  they  got  known  to  the  town-Whistler  with  his  long  hair  Ernest 
with  his  brown  hollands  and  straw  hat  fearfully  out  of  season  The 
boys  of  the  town  would  follow  to  the  post-office,  where,  before  they 
were  at  the  door,  the  official  was  shaking  his  head  and  saying  “  Nichts  / 
Nichts /”  and  all  the  crowd  would  yell,  “  Nichts !  Nichts /”  At 
last  t°  escape  attention,  they  spent  their  days  sitting  on  the  ramparts. 

.  . At  the  end  of  a  fortnight  Whistler  took  his  knapsack,  put  his  plates 
m  it  and  carried  it  to  the  landlord,  Herr  Schmitz,  whose  daughter 
Little  Gretchen,  he  had  etched-probably  the  plate  called  Gretchen 
at  Heidelberg.  He  said  he  was  penniless,  but  here  were  his  copper¬ 
plates  m  his  knapsack  upon  which  he  would  set  his  seal.  What  was 
to  be  done  with  copper-plates  ?  the  landlord  asked.  They  were 
to  be  kept  with  the  greatest  care  as  the  work  of  a  distinguished  artist 
Whistler  answered,  and  when  he  was  back  in  Paris,  he  would  send  the 
money  to  pay  his  bill,  and  then  the  landMwould  send  him  the  knapsack. 
Herr  Schmitz  hesitated,  while  Whistler  and  Ernest  were  in  despair 
over  the  necessity  of  trusting  masterpieces  to  him.  The  bargain  was 
struck  after  much  talk.  The  landlord  gave  them  a  last  breakfast 
Lma,  the  maid,  slipped  her  last  groschen  into  Whistler’s  hand,  and  the 

two  set  out  to  walk  from  Cologne  to  Paris  with  paper  and  pencils 
for  baggage.  —  -- 

Whistler  used  to  say  that,  had  they  been  less  young,  they  could  have 
seen  only  the  terror  of  that  tramp.  A  portrait  was  the  price  of  every 
plate  of  soup,  every  egg,  every  glass  of  milk  on  the  road.  The  children 
who  hooted  them  had  to  be  drawn  before  a  bit  of  bread  was  given  to  them 
1  hey  slept  m  straw.  And  they  walked  until  Whistler’s  light  shoes 
got  rid  of  most  of  their  soles  and  bits  of  their  uppers,  and  Ernest’s 
hollands  grew  seedier  and  seedier.  But  they  were  young  enough  to 
laugh,  and  one  day  Whistler,  seeing  Ernest  tramping  ahead  solemnly 
t  trough  the  mud,  the  rain  dripping  from  his  straw  hat,  his  linen  coat 
a  rag,  shrieked  with  laughter  as  he  limped.  “  Que  voulez-vous  ?  ” 
Ernest  said  mournfully,  “Us  saisons  m'ont  toujours  devance  !  ”  But 
it  was  the  time  of  the  autumn  fairs,  and,  joining  a  lady  who  played 
the  violin  and  a  gentleman  who  played  the  harp,  they  gave  enter¬ 
tainments  in  every  village,  beating  a  big  drum,  announcing  themselves 
44  [1858 


(See  page  52) 


PORTRAIT  OF  WHISTLER  IN  THE  BIG  HAT 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 


Student  Days  in  the  Latin  Quarter 

as  distinguished  artists  from  Paris,  ofFerirg  to  draw  portraits,  five 
francs  the  full  length,  three  francs  the  half-length.  At  times  they  beat 
the  big  drum  in  vain,  and  Whistler  was  reduced  to  charging  five  sous 
apiece  for  his  portraits,  but  he  did  his  best,  he  said,  and  there  was  net  a 
drawing  to  be  ashamed  of. 

At  last  they  came  to  Aix,  where  there  was  an  American  Consul 
who  knew  Major  Whistler,  and  advanced  fifty  francs  to  his  son.  At 
Liege,  poor,  shivering,  ragged  Ernest  got  twenty  from  the  French 
Consul,  and  the  rest  of  the  journey  was  made  in  comfort.  On  his 
return,  Whistler’s  first  appearance  at  the  Cafe  Moliere  was  a  triumph. 
They  had  thought  him  dead,  and  here  he  was,  le  petit  Americain ! 
And  what  blague ,  what  calling  for  coffee  pour  le  petit  Whistler ,  pour 
notre  petit  Americain  !  And  what  songs ! 

“  Car  il  n’est  pas  mort,  larifla  !  fla  /  fia  ! 

Non ,  c'est  qu'il  dort. 

Pour  le  reveiller ,  trinquons  nos  verres  ! 

Pour  le  reveiller,  trinquons  encore  !  ” 

That  Herr  Schmitz  was  paid  and  delivered  up  the  plates  the  prints 
are  the  proof.  Some  years  after  Whistler  went  back  to  Cologne  with 
his  mother.  In  the  evening  he  slipped  away  to  the  old,  little  hotel, 
where  the  landlord  and  the  landlord’s  daughter,  grown  up,  recognised 
him  and  rejoiced. 

These  stories,  and  hundreds  like  them,  still  float  about  the  Quarter, 
told  not  only  by  Whistler,  but  by  les  vieux ,  who  shake  their  heads 
over  the  present  degeneracy  of  students  and  the  tameness  of  student 
life — stories  of  the  clay  model  of  the  heroic  statue  of  Gericault,  left, 
for  want  of  money,  swathed  in  rags,  and  sprinkled  every  morning  until 
at  last  even  the  rags  had  to  be  sold,  and  then,  when  they  were  taken  off, 
Gericault  had  sprouted  with  mushrooms  that  paid  for  a  feast  in  the 
Quarter  and  enough  clay  to  finish  the  statue  ;  stories  of  a  painter, 
in  his  empty  studio,  hiring  a  piano  by  the  month  that  the  landlord 
might  see  it  carried  upstairs  and  get  a  new  idea  of  his  tenant  s  assets  ; 
stories  of  the  monkey  tied  to  a  string,  let  loose  in  other  people  s  larders, 
then  pulled  back,  clasping  loaves  of  bread  and  bottles  of  wine  to  its 
bosom  ;  stories  of  students,  with  bedclothes  pawned,  sleeping  in  chests 
1858]  45 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

of  drawers  to  keep  warm  ;  stories  of  Courbet’s  Baigneuse  in  wonderful 
Highland  costume  at  the  students’  balls  ;  stories  of  practical  jokes  at 
the  Louvre.  It  was  the  day  of  practical  jokes,  les  charges  :  and  Courbet, 
whom  they  worshipped,  was  the  biggest  blageur  of  them  all,  eventually 
signing  his  death-warrant  with  that  last  terrible  charge,  the  fall  of  the 
Column  Vendome,  which  Paris  never  forgave. 

In  this  atmosphere,  Whistler’s  spirit,  so  alarming  to  his  mother,  found 
stimulus,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  if  his  gaiety  struck  everyone  in 
Paris  as  in  St.  Petersburg  and  Pomfret,  West  Point  and  Washington. 


CHATER  VII :  WORKING  DAYS  IN  THE  LATIN  QUARTER. 
THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-FIVE  TO  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY- 
NINE  CONTINUED. 

The  stories  cannot  be  left  out  of  Whistler’s  life  as  a  student,  for  thev 
lived  in  his  memory.  The  English  students  brought  back  the  impression 
that  he  was  an  idler,  the  French  thought  so  too,  and  the  English  believe 
to-day  that  he  was  an  idler  always.  And  yet  he  worked  in  Paris  as 
much  as  he  played.  His  convictions,  his  preferences,  his  prejudices, 
were  formed  during  those  years.  His  admiration  for  Poe,  a  West  Point 
man,  was  strengthened  by  the  hold  Poe  had  taken  of  French  men  of 
letters.  His  disdain  of  nature,  his  contempt  for  anecdote  in  art 
as  a  concession  to  the  ignorant  public,  his  translation  of  the  subjects 
of  painting  into  musical  terms,  and  much  else  charged  against  him  as 
deliberate  pose,  can  be  traced  to  Baudelaire.  It  is  incomprehensible 
how  he  found  time  to  read  while  a  student,  and  yet  he  knew  the  litera¬ 
ture  of  the  day.  With  artists  and  their  movements  he  was  m  ore  familiar. 
He  mastered  all  that  Gleyre  could  teach  on  the  one  hand,  Courbet  on 
the  other.  He  came  under  the  influence  of  Lecocq  de  Boisbaudran, 
who  was  occupied  with  the  study  of  values,  effects  of  night,  and  training 
of  memory.  It  is  absurd  for  anyone  to  say  that  Whistler  idled  away 
his  four  full  years  in  Paris. 

The  younger  men  in  their  rebellion  against  official  art  were  not 
so  foolish  as  to  disdain  the  Old  Masters.  They  went  to  the  Louvre 
to  learn  how  to  use  their  eyes  and  their  hands.  There  they  copied 
the  pictures,  and  there  they  met  each  other.  To  Whistler  the 
46  [1858 


Working  Days  in  the  Latin  Quarter 

Frenchmen  were  more  sympathetic  than  the  English,  and  he  joined 
them  at  the  Louvre.  Respect  for  the  great  traditions  of  art -always 
was  his  standard  :  “What  is  not  worthy  of  the  Louvre  is  not  art,” 
he  said.  Rembrandt,  Hals,  and  Velasquez  were  the  masters  by  whom 
he  was  influenced.  There  are  only  a  few  pictures  by  Velasquez  in  the 
Louvre,  and  Whistler’s  early  appreciation  of  him  has  been  a  puzzle  to 
some,  who,  to  account  for  it,  have  credited  him  with  a  journey  when 
a  student  to  Madrid.  But  that  journey  was  not  made  in  the  fifties 
or  ever,  though  he  planned  it  more  than  once.  A  great  deal  could  be 
learned  about  Velasquez  without  going  to  Spain.  Whistler  knew  the 
London  galleries,  and  in  1857  he  visited  the  Art  Treasures  Exhibition 
at  Manchester,  taking  Henri  Martin  with  him.  There  was  a  difficulty 
about  the  money  for  their  railway  fares,  and  he  suggested  to  T. 
Armstrong  that  he  might  borrow  it  from  a  friend  of  the  family  who 
was  manager  of  the  North-Western.  “  But  have  you  paid  him  the 
three  hundred  francs  he  has  already  lent  you  ?  ”  Armstrong  asked. 

“  Why,  no,”  Whistler  answered  ;  “  ought  that  to  make  any  difference  ? 
And  he  consulted  the  friend  as  to  whether  it  would  not  be  the  right 
thing  to  ask  for  another  loan.  From  this  friend,  or  somebody,  he  managed 
to  get  the  money,  and  Miss  Emily  Chapman  finds  in  her  diaries,  which 
she  has  consulted  for  us,  that  on  September  xi,  1857?  Rose,  her  sister, 
“  went  to  Darwen  and  found  Whistler  and  Henri  Martin  staying  at 
Earnsdale  ”  with  another  sister,  Mrs.  Potter  ;  “  a  merry  evening,” 
the  note  finishes.  Fourteen  fine  examples  of  Velasquez  were  in  the 
Manchester  Exhibition,  lent  from  private  collections  in  England, 
among  them  the  Venus ,  Admiral  Pulido  Pareja,  Duke  Olivarez  on 
Horseback,  Don  Balthazar  in  the  Tennis  Court,  some  of  them  now  in 
the  British  National  Gallery. 

Whistler  once  described  himself  to  us  as  “a  surprising  youth, 
suddenly  appearing  in  the  group  of  French  students  from  no  one 
knew  where,  with  my  Mire  Gerard  and  the  Piano  Picture  [At  the 
Piano ]  for  introduction,  and  making  friends  with  Fantin  and  Legros, 
who  had  already  arrived,  and  Courbet,  whom  they  were  all  raving 
about,  and  who  was  very  kind  to  me.” 

The  Piano  Picture  was  painted  toward  the  end  of  his  student 
years  in  Paris,  the  Mere  Gerard  a  little  earlier,  so  that  this  agrees  with 
Fantin’s  notes.  In  1858,  Fantin  says,  “  I  was  copying  the  Marriage 
1858]  47 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Feast  at  Cana  in  the  Louvre  when  I  saw  passing  one  day  a  strange 
creature — personnage  etrange,  le  Whistler  en  chapeau  bizarre ,  who, 
amiable  and  charming,  stopped  to  talk,  and  the  talk  was  the  beginning 
of  our  friendship,  strengthened  that  evening  at  the  Cafe  Moliere .” 

Carolus  Duran  writes  us,  from  the  Academie  de  France  in  Rome, 
that  he  and  Whistler  met  as  students  in  Paris  ;  after  that  he  lost  sight 
of  Whistler  until  the  days  of  the  new  Salon,  but,  though  there  were 
a  few  meetings  then,  his  memories  are  altogether  of  the  student  years. 
Bracquemond  has  recalled  for  us  that  he  was  making  the  preliminary 
drawing  for  his  etching  after  Holbein’s  Erasmus  in  the  Louvre  when 
he  first  saw  Whistler.  Their  meetings  were  cordial,  but  never  led 
to  intimacy.  With  Legros  Whistler’s  friendship  did  become  intimate, 
and  the  two,  with  Fantin,  formed  at  that  date  what  Whistler  called 
their  “  Society  of  Three.” 

Fantin  was  somewhat  older,  had  been  studying  much  longer,  and 
had,  among  students,  a  reputation  for  wide  and  sound  knowledge  :  “a 
learned  painter,”  Armstrong  says.  M.  Benedite  thinks  that  the 
friendship  was  useful  to  Fantin,  but  of  the  greatest  importance  to 
Whistler,  on  whose  art  in  its  development  it  had  a  marked  influence. 
Mr.  Luke  lonides,  on  the  other  hand,  insists  that  “even  in  those 
early  days,  Whistler’s  influence  was  very  much  felt.  He  had  decided 
views,  which  were  always  listened  to  with  respect  and  regard  by  many 
older  artists,  who  seemed  to  recognise  his  genius.”  The  truth  probably 
is  that  Whistler  and  Fantin  influenced  each  other.  They  worked  in 
sympathy,  and  the  understanding  between  them  was  complete.  They 
not  only  studied  in  the  Louvre,  but  joined  the  group  at  Bonvin  s 
studio  to  work  from  the  model  under  Courbet. 

With  Courbet,  we  come  to  an  influence  which  cannot  be  doubted, 
much  as  Whistler  regretted  it  as  time  went  on.  Oulevey  remembers 
Whistler  calling  on  Courbet  once,  and  saying  enthusiastically  as  he  left 
the  house,  “  C’est  un  grand  homme  !  ”  and  for  several  years  his  pictures 
showed  how  strong  this  influence  was.  M.  Duret  even  sees  in  Courbet’s 
“  Manifestoes  ”  forerunners  of  Whistler’s  letters  at  a  later  date  to  the 
papers.  Courbet,  whatever  mad  pranks  he  might  play  with  the 
bourgeois,  was  seriousness  itself  in  his  art,  and  the  men  who  studied 
under  him  learned  to  be  serious,  Whistler  most  of  all. 

The  proof  of  Whistler’s  industry  is  in  his  work-in  his  pictures 

48  C1858 


•  J 


( See  page  49) 


DROUET 
ETCHING.  G.  55 


Working  Days  in  the  Latin  Quarter 

and  prints,  which  are  amazing  in  quality  and  quantity  for  the  student 
who,  Sir  Edward  Poynter  believes,  worked  in  two  or  three  years  only 
as  many  weeks.  It  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  he  never 
stopped  working.  Everything  that  interested  him  he  made  use  of. 
The  women  he  danced  with  at  night  were  his  models  by  day  :  Fumette, 
who,  as  she  crouches,  her  hair  loose  on  her  shoulders,  in  that  early 
etching,  looks  the  Tigresse  who  tore  up  his  drawings  in  a  passion  ;  and 
Finette,  the  dancer  in  a  famous  quadrille,  who,  when  she  came  to 
London,  was  announced  as  “  Madame  Finette  in  the  cancan ,  the  national 
dance  of  France .”  His  friends  had  to  pose  for  him  :  Drouet,  in  the 
plate,  done,  he  told  us,  in  two  sittings,  one  of  two  and  a  half  hours, 
the  other  of  an  hour  and  a  half  ;  Axenfeld,  the  brother  of  a  famous 
physician;  Becquet,  the  sculptor-musician,  “the  greatest  man  who 
ever  lived  ”  to  his  friends,  to  the  world  unknown  ;  Astruc,  painter, 
sculptor,  poet,  editor  of  V  Artiste,  of  whom  his  wife  said  that  he  was 
the  first  man  since  the  Renaissance  who  combined  all  the  arts,  but  who 
is  only  remembered  in  Whistler’s  print  ;  Delatre,  the  printer  ;  Riault, 
the  engraver.  Bibi  Valentin  was  the  son  of  another  engraver.  And 
there  is  the  amusing  pencil  sketch  of  Fantin  in  bed  on  a  winter  day, 
working  away  in  his  overcoat,  muffler,  and  top  hat,  trying  to  keep  warm  . 
one  kept  among  a  hundred  lost.  The  streets  where  Whistler  wandered, 
the  restaurants  where  he  dined,  became  his  studios.  At  the  house 
near  the  Rue  Dauphine  he  etched  Bibi  Lalouette.  His  Soupe  d  Trois 
Sous  was  done  in  a  cabaret  kept  by  Martin,  whose  portrait  is  in  the  print 
at  the  extreme  left,  and  who  was  famous  in  the  Quarter  for  having 
won  the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour  at  an  earlier  age  than  any 
man  ever  decorated,  and  then  promptly  losing  it.  Mr.  Ralph  Thomas 
says  :  “  While  Whistler  was  etching  this,  at  twelve  o’clock  at  night, 
a  gendarme  came  up  to  him  and  wanted  to  know  what  he  was 
doing.  Whistler  gave  him  the  plate  upside  down,  but  officialism  could 
make  nothing  of  it.” 

There  is  hardly  one  of  these  etchings  that  is  not  a  record  of  his  daily 
life  and  of  the  people  among  whom  he  lived,  though  to  make  it  such 
a  record  was  the  last  thing  he  was  thinking  of. 

Whistler’s  first  set  of  etchings  was  published  in  November  1 85 8. 
The  prints  were  not  the  first  he  made  after  leaving  Washington.  On  the 
rare  Au  Sixieme,  supposed  to  be  unique,  Haden,  to  whom  it  had  belonged, 
1858]  D  4-9 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

wrote,  Probably  the  first  of  Whistler’s  etchings,”  but  then  Haden 
wrote  these  things  on  others,  and  knew  little  about  them.  A  portrait 
of  himself,  another  of  his  niece  Annie  Haden,  the  Dutchman  holding 
the  Glass,  are  as  early,  if  not  earlier.  There  were  twelve  plates 
some  done  in  Paris,  some  during  the  journey  to  the  Rhine,  some 
in  London.  There  was  also  an  etched  title  with  his  portrait,  for 
which  Ernest,  putting  on  the  big  hat,  sat.  Etched  above  is  “  Douze 
Eaux  Fortes^  d’apres  Nature  par  James  Whistler ,”  and  to  one  side, 
u  Imp.  Deldtre,  Rue  St.  Jacques,  171,  Paris,  Nov.  1858.”  Whistler 
dedicated  the  set  to  mon  vieil  ami  Seymour  Haden,  and  issued 
and  sold  it  himself  for  two  guineas.  Delatre  printed  the  plates,  and, 
standing  at  his  side,  Drouet  said,  Whistler  learned  the  art.  Del&tre’s 
shop  was  the  room  described  by  the  De  Goncourts,  with  the  two  windows 
looking  on  a  bare  garden,  the  star  wheel,  the  man  in  grey  blouse  pulling 
it,  the  old  noisy  clock  in  the  corner,  the  sleeping  dog,  the  children 
peeping,  in  at  the  door  ;  the  room  where  they  waited  for  their  first 
proof  with  the  emotion  they  thought  nothing  else  could  give.  Drouet 
said  that  Whistler  never  printed  at  this  time.  But  Oulevey  remembers 
a  little  press  in  the  Rue  Campagne-Premiere,  and  Whistler  pulling 
the  proofs  for  those  who  came  to  buy  them.  He  was  already  hunting 
for  old  paper,  loitering  at  the  boxes  along  the  quais,  tearing  out  fly¬ 
leaves  from  old  books.  Passages  in  many  plates  of  the  series,  especially 
in  La  Mere  Gerard  and  La  Marchande  de  Moutarde,  are,  as  we  have 
said,  like  his  work  in  The  Coast  Survey,  No.  1.  For  the  only  time, 
and  as  a  result  of  his  training  at  Washington,  his  handling  threatened 
to  become  mannered.  But  in  the  Street  at  Saverne  he  overcame  his 
mannerism,  while  in  others,  not  in  the  series  but  done  during  these 
years,  the  Drouet,  Soupe  a  Trois  Sous,  Bibi  Lalouette,  he  had  perfected 
his  early  style  of  drawing,  biting,  and  dry-point.  We  never  asked  him 
how  the  French  plates  were  bitten,  but,  no  doubt,  it  was  in  the  tradi¬ 
tional  way  by  biting  all  over  and  stopping  out.  They  were  drawn 
directly  fiom  Nature,  as  can  be  seen  in  his  portraits  of  places  which 
are  reversed  in  the  prints.  So  far  as  we  know,  he  scarcely  ever  made 
a  preliminary  sketch.  We  can  recall  none  of  his  etchings  at  any  period 
that  might  have  been  done  from  memory  or  sketches,  except  the 
Street  at  Saverne,  the  Venetian  Nocturnes,  the  Nocturne,  Dance  House, 
Amsterdam,  W eary,  and  Fanny  Leyland  portraits. 

5° 


[1858 


Working  Days  in  the  Latin  Quarter 

His  first  commissions  in  Paris  were,  he  told  us,  copies  made 
in  the  Louvre.  They  were  for  Captain  Williams,  a  Stonington  man, 
familiarly  known  as  “  Stonington  Bill,”  whose  portrait  he  had 
painted  before  leaving  home.  “  Stonington  Bill  ”  must  have  liked 
it,  for  when  he  came  to  Paris  shortly  afterwards  he  gave  Whistler 
a 5  commission  to  paint  as  many  copies  at  the  Louvre  as  he  chose 
for  twenty-five  dollars  apiece.  Whistler  said  he  copied  a  snow 
scene  with  a  horse  and  soldier  standing  by  and  another  at  its  feet, 
and  never  afterwards  could  remember  who  was  the  painter;  the 
busy  picture  detective  may  run  it  to  ground  for  the.  edification  of 
posterity.  There  was  a  St.  Luke  with  a  halo  and  draperies  ;  a  woman 
holding  up  a  child  towards  a  barred  window  beyond  which,  seen  dimly, 
was  the  face  of  a  man  ;  and  an  inundation,  no  doubt  The .  Deluge .  or 
The  Wreck.  He  was  sure  he  must  have  made  something  interesting 
out  of  them,  he  knew  there  were  wonderful  things  even  then— t  e 
beginnings  of  harmonies  and  of  purple  schemes-he  supposed  it  must 
have  been  intuitive.  Another  Stonington  man  commissioned  him  to 
paint  Ingres’  Andromeda  chained  to  the  rock-probably  the  Angelina 
of  Ingres  which  he  and  Tissot  are  said  to  have  copied  side  by  side, 
though  a  copy  of  an  Andromeda  by  him  has  been  shown  in  New  York, 
and  other  alleged  copies  are  now  turning  up.  All,  he  said,  might  be 
still  at  Stonington,  and  shown  there  as  marvellous  things  by  Whistler. 
To  these  may  be  added  the  Diana  by  Boucher  in  the  London  Memorial 
Exhibition,  owned  by  Mr.  Louis  Winans,  and  the  group  of  cavaliers 
after  Velasquez,  the  one  copy  Fantin  remembered  his  doing, 
study  of  a  nun  was  sent  to  the  London  Exhibition,  but  not  shown, 
with  the  name  “  Wisler  ”  on  the  back  of  the  canvas,  not  a  bad  study 
of  drapery,  which  may  have  been,  despite  the  name,  another  of  his 

copies  or  done  in  a  sketch  class.  , 

The  first  original  picture  in  Paris  was,  he  assured  us,  the  1  ere 
Gerard,  in  white  cap,  holding  a  flower,  which  he  gave  to  Swin  urne. 
There  is  another  painting  of  her,  we  believe,  and  from  Drouet  we  hear 
of  a  third,  which  has  vanished.  Whistler  painted  a  number  of  portraits ; 
some  it  would  probably  be  impossible  to  trace,  a  few  are  well  known 
One— a  difficult  piece  of  work,  he  said— was  of  his  father,  after  a  lithograph 
sent  him  for  the  purpose  by  his  brother  George,  and  he  began  another 
of  Henry  Harrison,  whom  he  had  known  in  Russia.  A  third  was  of 
1858]  51 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

himself  in  his  big  hat.  Two  were  studies  of  models  :  the  Tete  de 
Paysanne,  a  woman  in  a  white  cap,  younger  than  the  Mere  Gerard , 
and  the  Head  of  an  Old  Man  Smoking, ,  a  pedlar  of  crockery  whom  Whistler 
came  across  one  day  in  the  Halles,  a  full  face  with  large  brown  hat, 
for  long  the  property  of  Drouet  and  left  by  him  to  the  Louvre.  But 
the  finest  is  At  the  Piano ,  The  Piano  Picture  as  Whistler  called  it.  _  It 
is  the  portrait  of  his  sister  and  his  niece,  the  “  wonderful  little  Annie 
of  the  etchings,  now  Mrs.  Charles  Thynne,  who  gave  him  many  sittings, 
and  to  whom,  in  return,  he  gave  his  pencil  sketches  made  on  the 

journey  to  Alsace.  ...  .  , 

The  portraits  “  smell  of  the  Louvre.”  The  method  is  acquired 
from  close  study  of  the  Old  Masters.  “  Rembrandtish  ”  is  the  usual 
criticism  passed  on  these  early  canvases,  with  their  paint  laid  thickly 
on  and  their  heavy  shadows.  Indeed,  it  is  evident  that  his  own 
portrait,  Whistler  in  the  Big  Hat,  was  suggested  by _  Rembrandt’s 
Young  Man  in  the  Louvre.  To  his  choice  of  subjects,  in  his  pictures 
as  in  his  etchings,  he  brought  the  realism  of  Courbet,  painting  people 
as  he  saw  them,  and  not  in  clothes  borrowed  from  the  classical  and 
mediaeval  wardrobes  of  the  fashionable  studio.  Yet  there  is  the 
personal  note  :  Whistler  does  not  efface  himself  in  Ms  devotion  to 
the  masters.  This  is  felt  in  the  way  a  head  or  a  figure  is  placed  on 
the  canvas.  The  arrangement  of  the  pictures  on  the  wall  and  the 
mouldings  of  the  dado  in  At  the  Piano ,  the  harmonious  balance  of  the 
black  and  white  in  the  dresses  of  the  mother  and  the  little  girl,  show 
the  sense  of  design,  of  pattern,  which  he  brought  to  perfection  in 
the  Mother ,  Carlyle ,  and  Miss  Alexander.  There  was  nothing  like  it 
in  the  painting  of  the  other  young  men,  of  Degas,  Fantin,  Legros, 
Ribot,  Manet;  nothing  like  it  in  the  work  of  the  older  man, 
their  leader,  when  painting  V Enter rement  d  Ornans  and  Bonjour, 
Monsieur  Courbet.  M.  Duret  says  that  Whistler’s  fellow  students, 
who  had  immediately  recognised  Ms  etchings,  now  accepted  Ms 
paintings,  which  confirms  Whistler’s  statement  to  us. 

At  the  Piano  was  sent  to  the  Salon  of  1859  with  two  etchings  t  e 
titles  of  which  are  not  given.  The  etchings  were  hung,  the  picture 
was  rejected.  It  may  have  been  because  of  what  was  personal  in  it ; 
strong  personality  in  the  young  usually  fares  that  way  at  official  hands. 
Fantin’s  story  is  : 

52 


[1859 


In  ihe  possession  of  Edmund  Davis,  Esq. 


The  Beginnings  in  London 

“One  day  Whistler  brought  back  from  London  the  Piano  Picture, 
representing  his  sister  and  niece.  He  was  refused  with  Legros,  Ribot, 
and  myself  at  the  Salon.  Bonvin,  whom  I  knew,  interested  himself 
in  our  rejected  pictures,  and  exhibited  them  in  his  studio,  and  invited 
his  friends,  of  whom  Courbet  was  one,  to  see  them.  I  recall  very  well 
that  Courbet  was  struck  with  Whistler’s  picture.” 

Two  portraits  by  Fantin,  some  studies  of  still  life  by  Ribot,  and 
Legros’  portrait  of  his  father,  which  had  also  been  rejected,  were 
shown.  The  rejection  was  a  scandal.  The  injustice  was  flagrant,  the 
exhibitors  at  Bonvin’s  found  themselves  famous,  and  Whistler  s  picture 
impressed  many  artists  besides  Courbet.  With  its  exhibition  Whistler 
ceased  to  be  the  student,  though  he  was  a  student  all  his  life  ;  it  was 
only  in  his  last  years  that  he  felt  he  was  beginning  to  understand, 
he  often  said  to  us. 


CHAPTER  VIII :  THE  BEGINNINGS  IN  LONDON.  THE 
YEARS  EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-NINE  TO  EIGHTEEN  SIXTY 
THREE. 

It  was  now  that  Whistler  began  his  endless  journeys  between  Paris 
and  London.  At  first  he  stayed  with  his  sister,  Lady  Fla  den,  at 
62  Sloane  Street,  sometimes  bringing  with  him  Henri  Martin  or  Legros. 
In  1S59  he  invited  Fantin,  promising  him  glory  and  fortune.  In 
his  notes  Fantin  wrote  : 

“  Whistler  talked  about  me  at  this  moment  to  his  brother-in-law, 
Seymour  Haden,  who  urged  me  to  come  to  London  ;  he  had  also 
talked  about  me  to  Boxall.  I  should  like  it  known  that  it  was  Whistler 

who  introduced  me  to  England.” 

Fantin  arrived  in  time  for  them  to  go  to  the  Academy,  then  still 
in  the  east  end  of  the  National  Gallery.  Whistler  exhibited  for  the 
first  time,  and  Two  Etchings  from  Nature — a  perplexing  title,  for  all 
his  etchings  were  “  from  Nature  ’’—were  hung  in  the  little  octagon 
room,  or  “  dark  cell,”  reserved  for  black-and-white.  “  Les  souvenirs 
les  plus  vifs  que  fai  conserves  de  ce  temps  a  Londres Fantin  wrote, 
“  etaient  notre  admiration  pour  V exposition  des  tableaux  de  Millais 
d  V Academy.”  Millais  showed  The  Vale  of  Rest,  and  the  two  young 
1859]  53 


James  McNeill  Whistler. 

men,  fresh  from  Paris  studios,  recognised  in  his  work  the  realism 
which,  though  conceived  and  expressed  so  differently,  was  the  aim  of 
the  Pre-Raphaelites  as  of  Courbet. 

Seymour  Haden,  who  had  already  etched  some  of  his  finest  plates, 
was  kind  to  his  visitors.  He  not  only  ordered  copies  from  Fantin— 
amongst  them  one  of  the  many  Fantin  made  of  Veronese’s  Marriage 
Feast  at  Cana— but  he  bought  the  pictures  of  Legros,  who  was  "at 
one  moment  in  so  deplorable  a  condition,’  Whistler  said  to  us, 
“  that  it  needed  God  or  a  lesser  person  to  pull  him  out  of  it.  And  so  I 
brought  him  over  to  London,  and  for  a  while  he  worked  in  my  studio. 
He  had,  before  coming,  sold  a  church  interior  to  Haden,  who  liked 
it,  though  he  found  the  floor  out  of  perspective.  One  day  he  took 
it  to  the  room  upstairs  where  he  did  his  etchings,  and  turned  the  key. 
When  it  reappeared  the  floor  was  in  perspective  according  to  Haden. 
A  gorgeous  frame  was  bought,  and  the  picture  was  hung  conspicuously 
in  the  drawing-room.” 

Whistler  thought  Haden  restive  when  he  heard  that  Legros  was 
coming,  but  nothing  was  said.  The  first  day  Legros  was  impressed  ; 
he  had  been  accustomed  to  seeing  himself  in  cheap  frames,  if  in  any 
frame  at  all.  But  gradually  he  looked  inside  the  frame,  and  Haden’s 
work  dawned  upon  him.  That  he  could  not  stand.  What  was  he 
to  do  ?  he  asked  Whistler.  "  Run  off  with  it,”  Whistler  suggested. 
“We  got  it  down,  called  a  four-wheeler,  and  carried  it  away  to  the 
studio— -our  own  little  kopje”  for  Whistler  told  us  the  story  in  the  days 
of  the  Boer  War.  Haden  discovered  his  loss  as  soon  as  he  got  home, 
and  in  a  rage  hurried  after  them  to  the  studio.  But  when  he  saw 
it  on  an  easel,  Legros  repainting  the  perspective  according  to  his 
idea,  well,  there  was  nothing  to  say.  Where  the  studio  was  we  do  not 

Haden  even  endured  Ernest,  who  had  not  yet  caught  up  with  the 
seasons,  and  who  went  about  in  terror  of  the  butler,  taking  his  daily 
walks  in  slippers  rather  than  expose  his  boots  to  the  servants,  and 
enchanting  Whistler  by  asking,  “Mais,mon  cher,  qu'est-ce  que  c'estque  cette 
espece  de  cataracte  de  Niagara  ?  ”  when  Haden  turned  on  the  shower- 
bath  in  the  morning.  Fantin  was  almost  as  dismayed  by  the  luxury 
at  the  Hadens’.  “  What  lunches  !  ”  he  wrote  home,  “  what  roast 
beef  and  sherry  !  And  what  dinners— always  champagne  !  ”  And  if 
54  [1859 


The  Beginnings  in  London 

he  was  distressed  by  the  street  organs  grinding  out  the  Misireri  of 
Verdi,  he  could  console  himself  by  listening  to  Lady  Haden’s  brilliant 
playing  on  the  piano,  until  paradisiaque  was  the  adjective  he  found 
to  describe  his  life  there  to  his  parents. 

Whistler  fell  in  at  once  with  the  English  students  whom  he  had  known 
in  Paris  :  Poynter,  Armstrong,  Luke  and  Aleco  lonides.  Du  Maurier 
came  back  from  Antwerp  in  i860,  and  for  several  months  he  and 
Whistler  lived  together  in  Newman  Street.  Armstrong  remembers  their 
studio,  with  a  rope  like  a  clothes-line  stretched  across  it  and,  floating 
from  it,  a  bit  of  brocade  no  bigger  than  a  handkerchief,  which  was  their 
curtain  to  shut  off  the  corner  used  as  a  bedroom.  There  was  hardly 
ever  a  chair  to  sit  on,  and  often  with  the  brocade  a  towel  hung  from 
the  line  :  their  decoration  and  drapery.  Du  Maurier’s  first  Punch 
drawing— in  a  volume  full  of  crinolines  and  Leech  (vol.  xxxix., 
October  6,  i860)— shows  the  two,  shabby,  smoking,  calling  at  a 
photographer’s,  to  be  met  with  an  indignant,  “  No  smoking  here, 
sirs!”  followed  by  a  severe,  “Please  to  remember,  gentlemen,  that 
this  is  not  a  common  Hartist’s  Studio  !  ”  The  figure  at  the  door, 
with  curly  hair,  top  hat,  glass  in  his  eye,  hands  behind  his  back  smoking 
a  cigarette,  is  Whistler.  Probably  it  was  then  also  that  Du  Maurier 
made  a  little  drawing,  in  Mr.  Howard  Mansfield’s  collection,  of 
Whistler,  Charles  Keene,  and  himself,  with  their  autographs  below  ; 
Whistler  again  with  a  glass  in  his  eye. 

“  Nearly  always,  on  Sunday,  he  used  to  come  to  our  house,” 
Mr.  lonides  tells  us,  and  there  was  no  more  delightful  house  in 
London.  Alexander  lonides,  the  father,  was  a  wealthy  merchant 
with  a  talent  for  gathering  about  him  all  the  interesting  people 
in  town  or  passing  through,  artists,  musicians,  actors,  authors.  Mr. 
Luke  lonides  says  that  Whistler  came  to  their  evenings  and  played 
in  their  private  theatricals,  and  there  remains  a  programme  designed 
by  Du  Maurier,  with  a  drawing  of  himself,  Whistler,  and  Aleco 
lonides  at  the  top,  while  Luke  lonides  and  his  sister,  Mrs.  Coronio, 
stand  below  with  the  list  of  dramatis  persona ?  between.  And 
Whistler  also  took  part  in  their  masquerades  and  fancy-dress  balls, 
once  mystifying  everybody  by  appearing  in  two  different  costumes 
in  the  course  of  the  evening  and  winding  up  as  a  sweep.  He  never  lost 
his  joy  in  the  memory  of  Alma-Tadema,  on  another  of  these  occasions, 
186°]  re 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

as  an  “  Ancient  Roman  ”  in  toga  and  eye-glasses,  crowned  with 
flowers  :  “  amazing,”  Whistler  said,  “  with  his  bare  feet  and  Romano- 
Greek  St.  John’s  Wooden  eye  S  ” 

Mr.  Arthur  Severn  writes  us  :  “  My  first  recollection  of  Whistler 
was  at  his  brother-in-law’s,  Seymour  Haden  (he  and  Du  Maurier 
were  looking  over  some  Liber  Studiorum  engravings),  and  then 
at  Arthur  Lewis’  parties  on  Campden  Hill,  charming  gatherings 
of  talented  men  of  all  kinds,  with  plenty  of  listeners  and  sympathisers 
to  applaud.  The  Moray  Minstrels  used  to  sing,  conducted  by 
John  Foster,  and  when  they  were  resting  anyone  who  could  do 
anything  was  put  up.  Du  Maurier  with  Harold  Sower  would  sing 
a  duet,  Les  Deux  Aveugles ;  Grossmith  half  killed  us  with  laughter 
(it  was  at  these  parties  he  first  came  out).  Stacy  Marks  was 
a  great  attraction,  but  towards  the  end  of  the  evening,  when 
we  were  all  in  accord,  there  were  yells  for  Whistler,  the  eccentric 
Whistler  1  He  was  seized  and  stood  up  on  a  high  stool,  where  he 
assumed  the  most  irresistibly  comic  look,  put  his  glass  in  his  eye,  and 
surveyed  the  multitude,  who  only  yelled  the  more.  When  silence 
reigned  he  would  begin  to  sing  in  the  most  curious  way,  suiting  the 
action  to  the  words  with  his  small,  thin,  sensitive  hands.  His  songs 
were  in  argot  French,  imitations  of  what  he  had  heard  in  low  cabarets 
on  the  Seine  when  he  was  at  work  there.  What  Whistler  and  Marks 
did  was  so  entirely  themselves  and  nobody  else,  so  original  or  quaint, 
that  they  were  certainly  the  favourites.” 

“  Breezy,  buoyant  and  debonair,  sunny  and  affectionate,”  he 
seemed  to  George  Boughton,  who  could  not  remember  the  time  when 
“  Whistler’s  sayings  and  doings  did  not  fill  the  artistic  air,  nor  when 
he  failed  to  give  a  personal  touch,  a  “  something  distinct  ”  to  his 
appearance.  His  “  cool  suit  of  linen  duck  and  his  jaunty  straw  hat  ” 
were  conspicuous  in  London,  where  personality  of  dress  was  more 
startling  than  in  Paris.  Boughton  refers  to  a  flying  trip  to  Paris  at 
this  period,  when  he  was  “  flush  of  money  and  lovely  in  attire.” 
Others  recall  meeting  him,  armed  with  two  umbrellas,  a  white  and 
a  black,  his  practical  preparation  for  all  weathers.  Val  Prinsep  speaks 
of  the  pink  silk  handkerchief  stuck  in  his  waistcoat,  but  this  must  have 
been  later.  “  A  brisk  little  man,  conspicuous  from  his  swarthy  com¬ 
plexion,  his  gleaming  eye-glass,  and  his  shock  of  curly  black  hair,  amid 
6  [I860 


In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Huiton 


The  Beginnings  in  London 

which  shone  his  celebrated  white  lock,”  is  Val  Prinsep’s  description 

of  him  in  the  fifties.  .  . 

But  the  white  lock  is  not  seen  in  any  contemporary  painting  or 
etching.  It  was  first  introduced,  as  far  as  we  can  discover,  in  his 
portrait  owned  by  the  late  Mr.  McCulloch  and  in  the  etching  Whistler 
with  the  White  Lock,  1879,  though  there  may  be  earlier  work  showing 
it.  We  never  asked  him  about  it,  and  his  family,  friends,  and  con- 
temporaries,  whom  we  have  asked,  cannot  explain  it.  Some  say  that  it 
was  a  birthmark,  others  that  he  dyed  all  his  hair  save  the  one  lock. 
But  he  did  not  dye  his  hair.  Du  Maurier,  according  to  Dr.  Williamson, 
attributed  it  to  a  wound,  either  by  bullet  or  sword-cut,  recehed  at 
Valparaiso  :  the  wound  was  sewn  up,  the  white  lock  appeared  almost 
immediately.  Mr.  Theodore  Roussel  tells  a  somewhat  similar  story. 
But  we  think  if  this  were  so,  Whistler  would  have  told  us  of  it.  In 
an  exhibition  of  oil  paintings  and  pastels  by  Whistler  held  in  the 
Metropolitan  Museum,  New  York,  in  March  1910,  a  painting  was 
shown  entitled  Sketch  of  Mr.  Whistler.  It  was  lent  by  Mr.  Charles  L. 
Freer  and  was  sold  to  him  by  an  art  dealer.  We  are  by  no  means 
certain  that  it  is  genuine,  though  we  have  only  seen  the  reproduction, 
the  frontispiece  of  the  catalogue.  J.  recently  went  to  Detroit,  but 
in  Mr.  Freer’s  absence  he  was  not  allowed  to  see  the  painting.  If 
it  is  genuine,  it  is  most  likely  a  study  by  Whistler  of  the  Chinese  dress 
in  which  he  posed  for  Fantin.  In  Freer’s  sketch  the  white  lock  appears. 
Though  it  could  easily  have  been  added  later,  its  presence  to  us  seems 
proof  that  the  picture  is  most  probably  not  genuine,  and  certainly 
is  not  contemporary,  because  in  Fantin’s  head  of  Whistler  from  the 
Toast,  in  Hommage  d  Delacroix,  and  Whistler’s  own  portraits  of  that 
time  the  white  lock  is  not  shown.  Many,  seeing  him  for  the  first  time, 
mistook  the  white  lock  for  a  floating  feather.  He  used  to  call  it  the 
Meche  de  Silas,  and  it  amused  him  to  explain  that  the  Devil  caught 
those  whom  he  would  preserve  by  a  lock  of  hair  which  turned  white. 
Whatever  its  origin,  Whistler  cherished  it  with  greatest  care. 

Whistler  had  stumbled  upon  a  period  in  England  when,  though 
painters  prospered,  art  was  at  a  low  ebb.  Pre-Raphaelitism  was  on 
the  wane.  A  few  interesting  young  men  were  at  work  :  Charles 
Keene,  Boyd  Houghton,  Albert  Moore  ;  Fred  Walker  and  George 
Mason.  But  Academicians  were  at  the  high  tide  of  mid-Victorian 

I860]  57 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

success  and  sentiment.  They  puzzled  Whistler  no  less  than  he  puzzled 
them. 

“  Well,  you  know,  it  was  this  way.  When  I  came  to  London 
I  was  received  graciously  by  the  painters.  Then  there  was  coldness, 
and  I  could  not  understand.  Artists  locked  themselves  up  in  their 
studios — opened  the  doors  only  on  the  chain  ;  if  they  met  each  other 
in  the  street  they  barely  spoke.  Models  went  round  with  an  air  of 
mystery.  When  I  asked  one  where  she  had  been  posing,  she  said, 
'  To  Frith  and  Watts  and  Tadema.’  ‘  Golly  !  what  a  crew  !  ’  I  said. 

And  that’s  just  what  they  says  when  I  told  ’em  I  was  a-posing  to 
you  !  ’  1  hen  I  found  out  the  mystery  ;  it  was  the  moment  of  painting 
the  Royal  Academy  picture.  Each  man  was  afraid  his  subject  might 
be  stolen.  It  was  the  era  of  the  subject.  And,  at  last,  on  Varnishing 
Day,  there  was  the  subject  in  all  its  glory — wonderful  !  The  British 
subject  !  Like  a  flash  the  inspiration  came— the  Inventor  !  And  in 
the  Academy  there  you  saw  him  :  the  familiar  model— the  soldier 
or  the  Italian — and  there  he  sat,  hands  on  knees,  head  bent,  brows 
knit,  eyes  staring  ;  in  a  corner,  angels  and  cogwheels  and  things  ; 
close  to  him  his  wife,  cold,  ragged,  the  baby  in  her  arms ;  he  had 
failed !  The  story  was  told  ;  it  was  clear  as  day — amazing  !  The 
British  subject  !  What.” 

Into  this  riot  of  subject,  to  the  Academy  of  i860,  At  the  Piano 
was  sent,  with  five  prints  :  Monsieur  Astruc ,  Redacteur  du  Journal 
‘  L'  Artiste,  an  unidentified  portrait,  and  three  of  the  Thames  Set. 
Whistler  had  given  At  the  Piano ,  the  portrait  of  his  sister  and 
niece,  to  Seymour  Haden,  “  in  a  way,”  he  said  : 

“  Well,  you  know,  it  was  hanging  there,  but  I  had  no  particular 
satisfaction  in  that.  Haden  just  then  was  playing  the  authority  on 
art,  and  he  could  never  look  at  it  without  pointing  out  its  faults  and 
telling  me  it  never  would  get  into  the  Academy— that  was  certain.” 

However,  at  the  Academy  it  was  accepted,  Whistler’s  first  picture 
in  an  English  exhibition.  The  Salon  was  not  held  then  every  year, 
and  he  could  not  hope  to  repeat  his  success  in  Paris.  But  in 
London  At  the  Piano  was  as  much  talked  about  as  at  Bonvin’s.  It 
was  bought  by  John  Phillip,  the  Academician  (no  relation  to  the  family 
into  which  Whistler  afterwards  married).  Phillip  had  just  returned  from 
Spain  with,  “  well,  you  know,  Spanish  notions  about  things,  and  he  asked 
58  [1860 


The  Beginnings  in  London 

who  had  painted  the  picture,  and  they  told  him  a  youth  no  one  knew 
about,  who  had  appeared  from  no  one  knew  where.  Phillip  looked 
up  my  address  in  the  catalogue  and  wrote  to  me  at  once  to  say  he  would 
like  to  buy  it,  and  what  was  its  price  ?  I  answered  in  a  letter  which, 
I  am  sure,  must  have  been  very  beautiful.  I  said  that,  in  my  youth 
and  inexperience,  I  did  not  know  about  these  things,  and  I  would  leave 
to  him  the  question  of  price.  Phillip  sent  me  thirty  pounds  ;  when 
the  picture  was  last  sold,  to  Edmund  Davis,  it  brought  two  thousand 
eight  hundred  !  ” 

Thackeray,  Lady  Ritchie  tells  us,  “went  to  see  the  picture  of  Annie 
Haden  standing  by  the  piano,  and  admired  it  beyond  words,  and  stood 
looking  at  it  with  real  delight  and  appreciation.”  It  was  the  only 
thing  George  Boughton  brought  vividly  away  in  his  memories  of 
the  Academy.  The  critics  could  not  ignore  it.  “  It  at  once  made 
an  impression,”  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  wrote.  As  “  an  eccentric,  uncouth, 
smudgy,  phantom-like  picture  of  a  lady  at  a  pianoforte,  with  a  ghostly- 
looking  child  in  a  white  frock  looking  on,”  it  struck  the  Daily  Telegraph. 
But  the  Athenaum ,  having  discovered  the  “admirable  etchings”  in 
the  octagon  room,  managed  to  see  in  the  “  Piano  Picture,  despite  a 
recklessly  bold  manner  and  sketchiness  of  the  wildest  and  roughest 
kind,  a  genuine  feeling  for  colour  and  a  splendid  power  of  composition 
and  design,  which  evince  a  just  appreciation  of  nature  very  rare 
among  artists.  If  the  observer  will  look  for  a  little  while  at  this 
singular  production,  he  will  perceive  that  it  ‘  opens  out  ’  just  as  a 
stereoscopic  view  will — an  excellent  quality  due  to  the  artist’s  feel¬ 
ing  for  atmosphere  and  judicious  gradation  of  light.” 

We  quote  these  criticisms  because  the  general  idea  is  that  Whistler 
waited  long  for  notice.  He  was  always  noticed,  praised  or  blamed, 
never  ignored,  after  1859. 

Whistler  went  back  to  Paris  late  in  that  year.  December  1859  is 
the  date  of  his  Isle  de  la  Cite,  etched  from  the  Galerie  d’Apollon  in 
the  Louvre,  with  Notre  Dame  in  the  distance  and  the  Seine  and  its 
bridges  between.  It  was  his  only  attempt  to  rival  Meryon,  and  he 
succeeded  badly.  The  fact  that  he  gave  it  up  when  half  done  shows 
that  he  thought  so  and  was  too  big  an  artist  to  be  an  imitator,  especially 
of  a  “  little  man  like  M6ryon.”  Besides,  he  was  much  less  in  Paris  now, 
for,  though  he  preferred  life  there,  he  found  his  subjects  in  London, 
1859]  59 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

which  he  soon  made  his  home,  as  it  continued  to  be,  except  for  a  few 
intervals,  until  his  death.  It  was  not  the  people  he  cared  for,  nor  the 
customs.  He  was  drawn  by  the  beauty  that  no  one  had  felt  with  the 
same  intensity  and  understanding. 

He  went  to  work  on  the  river.  In  these  first  years  he  dated  his 
prints  and  pictures,  as  he  seldom  did  later,  and  1859  hitten  on 
many  of  the  Thames  plates.  He  saw  the  river  as  no  one  had  seen  it 
before,  in  its  grime  and  glitter,  with  its  forest  of  shipping,  its  endless 
procession  of  barges,  its  grim  warehouses,  its  huge  docks,  its  little 
waterside  inns.  And  as  he  saw  it  so  he  rendered  it,  as  no  one  ever  had 
before— as  it  is.  It  was  left  to  the  American  youth  to  do  for  London 
what  Rembrandt  had  done  for  Amsterdam.  There  were  eleven 
plates  on  the  Thames  during  this  year.  To  make  them  he  wandered 
from  Greenwich  to  Westminster  ;  they  included  Black  Lion  WharJ, 
Tyzac,  Whiteley  and  Co.,  which  he  never  excelled  at  any  period  ;  and 
in  each  the  warehouses  or  bridges,  the  docks  or  ships,  are  worked  out 
with  a  mass  and  marvel  of  detail.  The  Pre-Raphaelites  were  not  so 
faithful  to  Nature,  so  minute  in  their  rendering.  The  series  was 
a  wonderful  achievement  for  the  young  man  of  twenty-five  never 
known  to  work  by  his  English  fellow  students,  a  wonderful  achievement 
for  an  artist  of  any  age. 

Those  who  thought  he  idled  in  Paris  were  as  sure  of  his  application 
in  London.  "  On  the  Thames  he  worked  tremendously,”  Arm¬ 
strong  said,  “  not  caring  then  to  have  people  about  or  to  let  anyone 
see  too  much  of  his  methods.”  He  stayed  for  months  at  Wapping 
to  be  near  his  subjects,  though  not  cutting  himself  off  entirely  from  his 
friends.  Sir  Edward  Poynter,  Mr.  Ionides,  M.  Legros,  Du  Maurier 
visited  him.  Mr.  Ionides  recalls  long  drives  down  by  the  Tower 
and  the  London  Docks  to  get  to  the  place,  as  out  of  the  way  now  as 
then.  He  says  Whistler  lived  in  a  little  inn,  rather  rough,  frequented 
by  skippers  and  bargees,  close  to  Wapping  steamboat  pier.  But  there 
is  no  doubt  that  much  of  his  work  was  done  from  Cherry  Gardens, 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  Unfortunately  it  was  not  until  after 
his  death  that  we  looked  into  this  matter.  At  any  rate,  if  he  lived 
at  Wapping,  he  worked  a  great  deal  at  Cherry  Gardens,  also  often  from 
boats  and  barges,  he  told  us,  and  this  one  can  see  in  the  prints.  Some¬ 
times  he  would  get  stranded  in  the  mud,  and  at  others  cut  off  by 
60  [1859 


ROTHERHITHE 

ETCHING.  G.  66 


(See  page  62) 


The  Beginnings  in  London 

the  tide.  “  When  his  friends  came,”  Armstrong  wrote  us,  “  they 
dined  at  an  ordinary  there  used  to  be.  People  who  had  business  at 
the  wharves  in  the  neighbourhood  dined  there,  and  Jimmie’s  de¬ 
scriptions  of  the  company  were  always  humorous.”  Mr.  lonides 
drove  down  once  for  a  dinner-party  Whistler  gave  at  his  inn  : 

“  The  landlord  and  several  bargee  guests  were  invited.  Du  Maurier 
was  there  also,  and  after  dinner  we  had  songs  and  sentiments.  Jimmie 
proposed  the  landlord’s  health  ;  he  felt  flattered,  but  we  were  in  fits 
of  laughter.  The  landlord  was  very  jealous  of  his  wife,  who  was 
rather  inclined  to  flirt  with  Jimmie,  and  the  whole  speech  was  chaff 
of  a  soothing  kind  that  he  never  suspected.” 

Another  and  more  frequent  visitor  to  Wapping  was  Serjeant 
Thomas,  one  of  those  patrons  who  recognise  the  young  artist  and 
appear  when  recognition  is  most  needed.  He  bought  drawings  and 
prints  from  Holman  Hunt  and  Legros  when  they  were  scarcely  known, 
and  he  helped  Millais  through  difficult  days.  Whistler  had  issued 
his  French  Set  of  etchings  in  London  in  1859  :  twelve  Etchings  from 
Nature  by  James  Abbott  Whistler,  London.  Published  by  J.  A.  Whistler. 
At  No.  62  Sloane  Street  (Haden’s  house).  The  price,  as  in  Paris,  for 
Artist's  Proofs  on  India,  two  guineas.  Serjeant  Thomas  saw  the  prints, 
got  to  know  Whistler,  and  arranged  their  further  publication,  and  also 
the  Thames  etchings  which  he  sold  separately  at  39  Old  Bond  Street, 
where  he  had  opened  a  shop  with  his  son,  Edmund  Thomas,  as  manager. 

Mr.  Percy  Thomas,  a  younger  son,  has  told  us  that,  as  a  little  fellow, 
he  often  went  with  his  father  by  boat  to  Wapping,  and  that  his  father 
and  brother  posed  for  two  of  the  figures— -the  third  is  Whistler — in 
A  he  Little  Pool,  used  as  an  invitation  card.  He  has  also  told  us  that 
much  of  the  printing  was  done  at  39  Old  Bond  Street,  where  the  family 
lived  in  the  upper  part  of  the  house.  A  press  was  in  one  of  the  small 
rooms,  and  Whistler  would  come  in  the  evening,  when  he  happened  to 
be  in  town,  to  bite  and  prove  his  plates.  Sometimes  he  would  not 
get  to  work  until  half-past  ten  or  eleven.  In  those  days  he  put  his 
plate  in  a  deep  bath  of  acid,  keeping  to  the  technical  methods  of  the 
Coast  Survey,  though  it  is  said  that  the  Coast  Survey  plates  were  banked 
up  with  wax  and  the  acid  poured  over  them.  This  is  supposed  to  have 
been  the  method  of  Rembrandt.  Serjeant  Thomas,  in  his  son’s  words, 
was  “  great  for  port  wine,”  and  he  would  fill  a  glass  for  Whistler,  and 
1859]  61 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Whistler  would  place  the  glass  by  the  bath,  and  then  work  a  little  on 
the  plate  and  then  stop  to  sip  the  port,  and  he  would  sap,  “  Excellent ! 
Very  good  indeed  !  ”  and  they  never  knew  whether  he  meant  the  wine 
or  the  work.  And  the  charm  of  his  manner  and  his  courtesy  made  it 
delightful  to  do  anything  for  him.  Serjeant  Thomas  brought  Dehttre 
from  Paris,  the  only  man,  he  thought,  who  could  print  Whistler’s 
etchings  as  the  artist  would  have  printed  them  himself.  “  Nobody,” 
Ralph  Thomas  wrote,  “  has  ever  printed  Mr.  Whistler’s  etchings  with 
success  except  himself  and  M.  Delatre,”  and  to-day  many  people  are 
of  the  same  opinion.  Whistler’s  relations  with  the  firm  were  pleasant 
while  they  lasted.  But  they  did  not  last  long.  Edmund  Thomas 
cared  less  for  art  than  the  law,  and  in  the  shop  he  would  sit  at  his  desk 
reading  his  law  books,  never  looking  up  nor  leaving  them,  unless  someone 
asked  the  price  of  a  print  or  drawing.  A  successful  business  is  not  run 
on  those  lines,  and  in  a  few  years  he  gave  up  art  for  the  law,  to  his 
great  advantage. 

CHAPTER  IX  :  TPIE  BEGINNINGS  IN  LONDON.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  FIFTY-NINE  TO  EIGHTEEN  SIXTY-THREE 
CONTINUED. 

Whistler,  in  i860,  devoted  more  time  to  painting  on  the  river  and 
less  to  etching,  though  the  Rotberhithe  belongs  to  this  year.  One  picture 
he  described  in  a  letter  to  Fantin.  “  Chut!  n’en  parle  fas  a  Courbet ” 
was  his  warning,  as  if  afraid  to  trust  so  good  a  subject  to  anyone.  It 
was  to  be  a  masterpiece,  he  had  painted  it  three  times,  and  he  sent  a 
sketch  which  M.  Duret  reproduced  in  his  Whistler.  M.  Duret,  unable 
to  trace  the  picture,  thought  he  might  never  have  carried  it  beyond  the 
sketch.  But  it  was  finished  :  the  Wafping  shown  in  the  Academy 
of  1864,  a  proof  how  long  Whistler  kept  his  pictures  before  exhibiting 
them.  In  1867  he  sent  it  to  the  Paris  Exhibition.  It  was  bought 
by  Mr.  Thomas  Winans,  taken  to  Baltimore,  where  it  has  remained. 
Whistler  wanted  to  exhibit  it  at  Goupil’s  in  1892,  but  could  not  get  it. 
Never  seen  in  Europe  since  1867,  it  has  been  forgotten.  It  was  painted 
from  an  inn,  probably  The  Angel  on  the  water-side  at  Cherry  Gardens 
which  exists  to-day,  one  of  a  row  of  old  houses  with  overhanging  bal¬ 
conies.  In  the  foreground,  in  a  shadowy  corner  of  the  inn  balcony, 
62  [I860 


The  Beginnings  in  London 


is  a  sailor  for  whom  a  workman  from  Greaves’  boat-building  yard, 
Chelsea,  sat ;  next,  M.  Legros ;  and  on  the  other  side  of  M.  Legros, 
with  her  back  turned  to  the  river,  the  girl  with  copper-coloured  hair,  Jo, 
the  model  for  The  White  Girl  and  The  Little  White  Girl.  On  the  river 
are  the  little  square-rigged  ships  that  still  anchor  there  ;  on  the  opposite 
side  is  the  long  line  of  Wapping  warehouses,  which  give  the  name. 
Artists  feared  Jo’s  slightly  open  bodice  would  prevent  the  picture  being 
hung  in  the  Royal  Academy.  But  Whistler  insisted,  if  it  was  rejected 
on  that  account,  he  would  open  the  bodice  more  and  more  every  year 
until  he  was  elected  and  hung  it  himself. 

He  painted  The  Thames  in  Ice  this  year  (i860)  from  the  same  inn. 
It  was  called,  when  first  exhibited,  The  Twenty-fifth  of  December ,  i860, 
on  the  Thames.  For  an  idle  apprentice  it  was  a  strange  way  of  spending 
Christmas.  Whistler  told  us  that  Haden  bought  it  for  ten  pounds — 
ample  pay,  Haden  said  :  three  pounds  for  each  of  the  three  days 
he  spent  painting  it,  and  a  pound  over.  To  Whistler  the  pay 
seemed  anything  but  ample.  “  You  know,  my  sister  was  in  the  house, 
and  women  have  their  ideas  about  things,  and  I  did  what  she  wanted, 
to  please  her  !  ” 

Two  other  pictures  of  i860  are  the  portrait  of  Mr.  Luke  Ionides 
and  The  Music  Room.  In  both  the  influence  of  Courbet  is  evident. 
The  portrait,  painted  in  the  Newman  Street  studio,  has  the  heavy 
handling  of  The  Piano ,  though  much  more  brilliant.  But  the  other 
picture  is  a  tremendous  advance. 

Fantin  could  not  have  been  more  conscientious  in  rendering  the 
life  about  him  as  he  found  it  than  Whistler  in  The  Music  Room  ;  only, 
the  room  in  the  London  house,  with  its  gay  chintz  curtains,  has  none 
of  the  sombre  simplicity  of  the  interior  where  Fantin’s  sisters  sit. 
Fantin’s  home  had  an  austerity  he  made  beautiful ;  the  Hadens’  house 
had  colour — Harmony  in  Green  and  Rose  was  Whistler’s  later  title  for 
the  picture.  He  emphasised  the  gaiety  by  introducing  a  strong  black 
note  in  the  standing  figure,  Miss  Boot,  while  the  cool  light  from  the 
window  falls  on  “  wonderful  little  Annie,”  in  the  same  white  frock 
she  wears  in  The  Piano  Picture.  Mrs.  Thynne  (Annie  Haden)  says : 

“  I  was  very  young  when  The  Musk  Room  was  painted,  and  beyond 
the  fact  of  not  minding  sitting,  in  spite  of  the  interminable  length  of 
time,  I  do  not  know  that  I  can  say  more.  It  was  a  distinctly  amusing 
1860]  63 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

time  for  me.  He  was  always  so  delightful  and  enjoyed  the  ‘  no  lessons  ’ 
as  much  as  I  did.  One  day  in  The  Morning  Call  (the  first  name  of 
The  Music  Room )  I  did  get  tired  without  knowing  it,  and  suddenly 
dissolved  into  tears,  whereupon  he  was  full  of  the  most  tender  remorse, 
and  rushed  out  and  bought  me  a  lovely  Russia  leather  writing  set, 
which  I  am  using  at  this  very  moment  !  The  actual  music-room  still 
exists  in  Sloane  Street,  though  the  present  owners  have  enlarged  it, 
and  the  date  of  the  picture  must  have  been  ’60  or  ’61,  after  his  return 
from  Paris.  It  was  then  he  gave  me  the  pencil  sketches  I  lent  to  the 
London  Memorial  Exhibition.  I  had  kept  them  in  an  album  he  had 
also  bought  me  from  Paris,  with  my  name  in  gold  stamped  outside, 
of  which  I  was  very  proud.  We  were  always  good  friends,  and  I  have 
nothing  all  through  those  early  days  but  the  most  delightful  remem¬ 
brance  of  him.” 

This  picture  is  described  under  three  titles  :  The  Morning  Call ,  The 
Music  Room,  and  Harmony  in  Green  and  Rose,  The  Music  Room  ;  the 
present  confusion  in  Whistler’s  titles  is  usually  the  result  of  his  own 
vagueness.  It  became  the  property  of  Mrs.  Reveillon,  George  Whistler’s 
daughter,  and  was  carried  off  to  St.  Petersburg,  never  to  return  to 
London  until  the  exhibition  at  the  Goupil  Gallery  in  1892. 

It  has  become  the  fashion  to  say  that  Whistler  had  not  mastered 
his  trade  and  could  not  use  oil  paint.  These  early  pictures  are  techni¬ 
cally  as  accomplished  as  the  work  of  any  of  his  contemporaries.  He 
never  was  taught,  few  artists  are,  the  elements  of  his  trade,  and  some 
of  his  paintings  have  suffered.  The  Music  Room  and  The  Thames  in  Ice, 
so  far  as  we  can  remember,  are  wonderfully  fresh.  They  were  painted 
more  directly,  more  thinly,  than  the  Waffing,  in  which  the  paint 
is  thickly  piled,  as  in  the  Piano  Picture,  which  has  cracked,  no  doubt 
the  result  of  his  working  over  it  probably  on  a  bad  ground.  Of  two 
pictures  painted  at  the  same  period,  the  Waffing  is  badly  cracked,  and 
the  Thames  in  Ice  is  in  perfect  condition.  But  this  is  due  to  his  want 
of  knowledge  of  the  chemical  properties  of  paints  and  mediums.  Later, 
he  gave  great  attention  to  these  matters.  He  kept  the  W affing  four 
years  before  he  showed  it.  Though  started  down  the  river  in  i860,  it 
contains  a  portrait  of  Greaves’  man,  whom  he  did  not  see  for  two  or 
three  years  after.  Walter  Greaves  stated,  or  allowed  to  be  stated,  in 
a  preface  to  the  catalogue  of  his  exhibition  in  May  1911,  that  he  met 
64  [186© 


THE  THAMES  IN  ICE 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 


I  (See  page  63) 


The  Beginnings  in  London 

Whistler  in  the  late  fifties  when  Whistler  lived  in  Chelsea  and  made 
the  Thames  series  of  etchings.  But  the  statement  was  proved  to  be 
inaccurate,  and  the  preface  was  withdrawn.  We  have  quoted  Greaves 
on  several  occasions,  but,  before  doing  so,  we  have  verified  every  state¬ 
ment  of  importance  he  made  to  us,  and  we  first  met  him  some  few  years 
ago  when  his  memory  was  clearer  and  more  reliable,  and  when  he 
possessed  letters  fiom  Whistler  which  we  have  seen. 

Mrs.  Thynne  stood  in  i860  for  the  beautiful  dry-point  Annie  Haden, 
in  big  crinoline  and  soup-plate  hat,  the  print  Whistler  told  Mr.  E.  G. 
Kennedy  he  would  choose  by  which  to  be  remembered.  It  was  the 
year  also  of  the  portraits  of  Axenfeld,  Riault,  and  “Mr.  Mann.”  In 
1861  there  were  more  plates  on  the  Upper  as  well  as  the  Lower  Thames. 
Two  of  the  plates  of  1861  were  published  as  illustrations  by  the  Junior 
Etching  Club  in  Passages  from  Modern  English  Poets,  and  Whistler 
proved  the  plates  at  the  press  of  Day  and  Son,  and  met  the  lad  he 
called  “  the  best  professional  printer  in  England,”  Frederick  Goulding. 

Whistler  told  us  that  he  worked  about  three  weeks  on  each  of  the 
Thames  plates.  He  therefore  must  have  spent  on  dated  plates  alone 
thirty-six  weeks  in  1861,  leaving  but  fourteen  weeks  for  other  work  and 
for  play.  Some  of  them  are  much  less  elaborate  than  the  Drouet,  which, 
Drouet  said,  was  done  in  five  hours,  so  that  it  seems  difficult  to  reconcile 
the  two  statements.  But  it  was  about  the  Black  Lion  Wharf,  one  of 
the  fullest  of  detail,  that  we  asked  Whistler.  We  had  many  discussions 
with  him  about  them.  Whistler  maintained  that  they  were  youthful 
performances,  and  J.  as  strongly  maintained  that  that  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  matter  ;  that  he  never  surpassed  the  wonderful  drawing 
and  composition  and  biting.  He  insisted  that  his  later  work  m  Venice 
and  in  Holland  was  a  great  development,  a  great  advance,  and  his  final 
answer  was  :  “  Well,  you  like  them  more  than  I  do  !  ”  But  there  is 
no  doubt  that  the  Thames  plates,  notably  the  Black  Lion  Wharf,  have, 
for  artistic  rendering  of  inartistic  subjects  and  for  perfect  biting,  never 
been  approached.  Another  thing  that  astonished  J.  was  that  he  could 
see  such  detail  and  put  it  on  a  copper -plate.  “  H’m,”  was  Whistler’s 
comment,  “  that’s  what  they  all  say.” 

Whistler  got  to  know  the  Upper  Thames  when  he  stayed  with  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Edwin  Edwards  at  Sunbury.  Edwards  figures  in  his  dry- 
point  Encamping  with  M.  W.  Ridley,  who  was  Whistler  s  first  pupil, 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

and  Traer,  Haden’s  assistant,  not  “  Freer,”  as  he  has  long  masqueraded 
in  Mr.  Wedmore’s  catalogue.  Ridley  also  is  in  The  Storm  and  The 
Guitar-Player.  To  these  visits  we  owe  an  etching  of  Whistler  at 
Moulsey,  by  Edwards.  Whistler  introduced  Fantin,  who,  in  a  note  for 
1861,  refers  to  the  “  jolies  jemmies  chez  Edwards  a  Sunbury  ”  Mrs. 
Edwards  wrote  us  shortly  before  her  death  : 

Whistler  often  came  to  see  me,  turning  up  always  when  least 
expected,  perhaps  driving  down  in  a  hansom  cab  from  London.  At 
that  time  there  was  no  railway  at  Sunbury;  Hampton  Court  three 
miles  distant.  He  might  send  a  line  to  be  met  by  boat  at  Hampton 
Court.  He  was  always  very  eccentric.” 

Doubtless  the  driving  down  was  an  eccentricity.  But  Whistler 
knew'  he  might  see  some  foolish  sunset,”  or  a  Nocturne,  on  the  way. 
“  We  had  a  large  b°at  with  waterproof  cover,”  Mrs.  Edwards  added  ; 

my  husband  and  friends  several  times  went  up  the  river  and  slept 
in  the  boat.  Whistler  went  once,”  when  he  did  the  plate  Encamping, 
and  possibly  Sketching  and  The  Punt,  and,  in  Mrs.  Edwards’  words, 
got  rheumatism.”  It  had  been  his  trouble  since  St.  Petersburg.  He 
could  not  risk  exposure. 

Whistler,  though  not  settled  in  London,  sent  work  regularly  to 
the  Academy,  where  it  was  an  unfailing  shock  to  the  critics.  He  showed 
his  Mere  Gerard  in  1861.  The  Athenceum  described  the  picture  as 
a  fine,  powerful-toned,  and  eminently  characteristic  study.”  The 
Daily  Telegraph  thought  it  “  far  fitter  hung  over  the  stove  in  the 
studio  than  exhibited  at  the  Royal  Academy,  though  it  is  replete  with 
evidence  of  genius  and  study.  If  Mr.  Whistler  would  leave  off  using 
mud  and  clay  on  his  palette  and  paint  cleanly,  like  a  gentleman,  we 
should  be  happy  to  bestow  any  amount  of  praise  on  him,  for  he  has 
all  the  elements  of  a  great  artist  in  his  composition.  But  we  must 
protest  against  his  soiled  and  miry  ways.”  It  seemed  a  good,  serious 
study  of  an  old  woman  and  nothing  more,  when  we  saw  it  in  the 
London  IVlemorial  Exhibition,  and  the  appallingly  low  level  of  the 
Academy  alone  can  explain  the  attention  it  attracted. 

Whistler  was  in  France  in  the  summer  of  1861,  painting  The  Coast  oj 
Brittany,  or  Alone  with  the  Tide ,  which  might  have  been  signed  by 
Courbet  an  arrangement  in  brown  under  a  cloudy  sky,  a  stretch  of 
sand  at  low  tide  in  the  foreground,  water-washed  rocks  against  which 
66  [1861 


The  Beginnings  in  London 

a  peasant  girl  sleeps,  a  deep  blue  sea  beyond.  It  was  “  a  beautiful  thing,5 
Whistler  said  years  afterwards.  At  Perros  Guirec  he  made  his  splendid 
dry-point  The  Forge.  Another  print  of  this  year  is  the  rare  dry-point 
of  Jo,  who,  for  awhile,  appeared  in  Whistler’s  work  as  often  as  Saskia 
in  Rembrandt’s.  She  was  Irish.  Her  father  has  been  described  to  us 
as  a  sort  of  Captain  Costigan,  and  Jo — Joanna  Heffernan,  Mrs.  Abbott— 
as  a  woman  of  next  to  no  education,  but  of  keen  intelligence,  who, 
before  she  had  ceased  to  sit  to  Whistler,  knew  more  about  painting 
than  many  painters,  had  become  well  read,  and  had  great  charm. 
Her  value  to  Whistler  as  a  model  was  enormous,  and  she  was  an  important 
element  in  his  life  during  the  first  London  years.  She  was  with  him  in 
France  in  1861-2,  going  to  Paris  in  the  winter  to  give  him  sittings  for 
the  big  White  Girl ,  which  he  painted  in  a  studio  in  the  Boulevard 
des  Batignolles  hung  all  in  white.  There  Courbet  met  her,  and, 
looking  at  the  copper-coloured  hair,  saw  beauty  in  the  beautiful. 
He  painted  her,  though  perhaps  not  that  winter,  as  La  Belle 
Irlandaise ,  and  as  Jo,  femme  d’lrlande.  Whistler’s  study  of  Jo,  Note 
Blanche,  lent  by  Mrs.  Sickert  to  the  Paris  Memorial  Exhibition,  was 
doubtless  done  in  1861,  for  the  technique  is  like  Courbet’s.  Drouet 
remembered  breakfasts  in  the  studio  which  Whistler  cooked. 

He  fell  ill  before  the  end  of  the  winter.  Miss  Chapman  says  he 
was  poisoned  by  the  white  lead  used  in  the  picture.  Her  brother,  a 
doctor,  recommended  a  journey  to  the  Pyrenees.  At  Guethary 
Whistler  was  nearly  drowned  when  bathing.  He  wrote  to  Fantin  : 

“  It  was  sunset,  the  sea  was  very  rough,  I  was  caught  in  the  huge 
waves,  swallowing  gallons  of  salt  water.  I  sv/am  and  I  swam,  and  the 
more  I  swam  the  less  near  I  came  to  the  shore.  Ah  !  my  dear  Fantin, 
to  feel  my  efforts  useless  and  to  know  people  were  looking  on  saying,  ‘  But 
the  Monsieur  amuses  himself,  he  must  be  strong  S  ’  I  cry,  I  scream  in 
despair — I  disappear  three,  four  times.  At  last  they  understand.  A 
brave  railroad  man  rushes  to  me,  and  is  rolled  over  twice  on  the  sands. 
My  model  hears  the  call,  arrives  at  a  gallop,  jumps  in  the  sea  like  a 
Newfoundland,  manages  to  catch  me  by  the  foot,  and  the  two  pull 
me  out.”* 

At  Biarritz  he  painted  The  Blue  Wave,  a  great  sea  rolling  in  and 
breaking  on  the  shore  under  a  fine  sky,  but  quite  unlike  the  Coast  of 
*  See  Duret’s  Whistler. 


1862] 


67 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Brittany.  Whistler  painted  few  pictures  in  which  the  composition, 
the  arrangement,  is  more  obvious.  It  is  an  extraordinary  piece  of  work. 
It  has  lately  been  said  that  he  painted  this  picture  after  he  had  seen 
Courbet’s  V ague,  now  in  the  Louvre.  But  the  Vague  was  not  shown 
until  1870.  If  there  was  any  influence,  it  was  all  the  other  way. 
At  Fuenterrabia  Whistler  was  in  Spain,  for  the  only  time  ;  “  Spaniards 
from  the  Opera-Comique  in  the  street,  men  in  berets  and  red  blouses, 
children  like  little  Turks.”  He  wanted  to  go  farther,  to  Madrid' 
and  he  urged  Fantin  to  join  him.  Together  they  would  look  at  The 
Lances  and  The  Spinners  as  together  they  had  studied  at  the  Louvre. 
In  another  letter  he  promised  to  describe  Velasquez  to  Fantin,  to 
bring  back  photographs.  Such  “  glorious  painting  ”  should  be  copied. 

Ah  !  men  cher,  comme  il  a  du  travailler  f  he  winds  up  in  his  enthusiasm. 
But  the  journey  ended  at  Fuenterrabia.  Fantin  could  not  join  him. 
Madrid  was  put  off  for  another  spring,  for  ever,  though  the  journey 
was  for  ever  being  planned  anew. 

Whistler  sent  The  White  Girl  to  the  Academy  of  1862,  with  The 
Twenty-fifth  of  December,  i860,  On  the  Thames ;  Alone  with  the  Tide ; 
and  one  etching,  Rotherhithe.  The  White  Girl  was  rejected.  The 
two  other  pictures  and  the  print  were  accepted,  hung,  and  praised. 
The  A thenceum  compared  the  Rotherhithe  to  Rembrandt.  Whistler 
could  scarcely  be  mentioned  as  an  etcher  without  this  comparison ; 
since  Rembrandt  his  were  “  the  most  striking  and  original  ”  etchings, 
everyone  then  said,  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  being  among  the  first  in  England 
to  say  it  boldly.  Alone  with  the  Tide  was  approved  as  “perfectly 
expressed,”  and  The  Twenty-fifth  of  December  as  “  broad  and  vigorous, 
though  perhaps  vigour  was  pushed  over  the  bounds  of  coarseness  to 
become  mere  dash.  Other  work  he  showed  elsewhere  was  praised. 
The  Punt  and  Sketching,  published  in  Passages  from  Modern  English 
Poets,  were  singled  out  for  admiration.  Thames  Warehouses  and  Black 
Lion  Wharf  won  him  recognition  as  “the  most  admirable  etcher  of 
the  present  day,”  at  South  Kensington  Museum,  where  in  1862  an 
International  Exhibition  was  held.  Whistler  had  no  pictures,  but  the 
collection  of  modern  continental  art  was  one  of  the  finest  ever  seen  in 
England. 

In  nothing  had  Whistler  been  so  completely  himself  as  in  The  White 
Girl,  and  it  failed  to  please.  The  artist  is  born  to  pick  and  choose, 
68  [1862 


I  " 


THE  MUSIC  ROOM 
HARMONY  IN  GREEN  AND  ROSE 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Colonel  F.  Hecker 


( See  page  63) 


The  Beginnings  in  London 

and  group  with  science,  the  elements  in  Nature  that  the  result  may  be 
beautiful,  he  wrote  in  The  Ten  o’Clock ,  and  The  White  Girl  was  his 
first  attempt  to  conform  to  a  principle  no  one  ever  put  so  clearly  into 
words.  It  was  an  attempt,  we  know  now,  comparing  the  painting 
to  the  symphonies  and  harmonies  that  came  after.  But  at  the  time  it 
was  disquieting  in  its  defiance  of  modern  conventions.  It  was  without 
subject  according  to  Victorian  standards,  and  the  bold  massing  of 
white  upon  white  was  more  bewildering  than  the  minute  detail  of  the 
Pre-Raphaelites.  This  summer  (1862)  the  Berners  Street  Gallery  was 
opened,  “  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  placing  before  the  public  the 
works  of  young  artists  who  may  not  have  access  to  the  ordinary 
galleries.”  Maclise,  Egg,  Frith,  Cooper,  Poynter  forced  their  way 
in.  But  the  manager  had  the  courage  to  exhibit  The  White  Girl , 
stating  in  the  catalogue  that  the  Royal  Academy  had  refused  it. 
The  A thenceum  was  independent  enough  to  say  that  it  was  the  most 
prominent  picture  in  the  collection,  though  not  the  most  perfect,  for, 
“  able  as  this  bizarre  production  shows  Mr.  Whistler  to  be,  we  are 
certain  that  in  a  very  few  years  he  will  recognise  the  reasonableness  of 
its  rejection.  It  is  one  of  the  most  incomplete  paintings  we  ever  met 
with.  A  woman  in  a  quaint  morning  dress  of  white,  with  her  hair  about 
her  shoulders,  stands  alone  in  a  background  of  nothing  in  particular. 
But  for  the  rich  vigour  of  the  textures,  we  might  conceive  this  to  be 
some  old  portrait  by  Zucchero,  or  a  pupil  of  his,  practising  in  a  pro¬ 
vincial  town.  The  face  is  well  done,  but  it  is  not  that  of  Mr.  Wilkie 
Collins’  Woman  in  White.'” 

The  criticism  brought  from  Whistler  his  first  letter  to  the  Press, 
published  in  the  Athenceum ,  July  5  : 

“  62  Sloane  Street.  July  I,  1862. 

“  May  I  beg  to  correct  an  erroneous  impression  likely  to  be  con¬ 
firmed  in  your  last  number  ?  The  Proprietors  of  the  Berners  Street 
Gallery  have,  without  my  sanction,  called  my  picture  1  The  W oman  in 
White.1  I  had  no  intention  whatever  of  illustrating  Mr.  Wilkie  Collins’ 
novel ;  it  so  happens,  indeed,  that  I  have  never  read  it.  My  painting 
simply  represents  a  girl  dressed  in  white,  standing  in  front  of  a  white 
curtain.— I  am,  &c.,  James  Whistler.” 

The  critics  were  spared  the  sting  of  his  wit,  but  they  disapproved 

1862]  69 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

strongly  enough  for  him  to  tell  his  friends  that  The  IV kite  Girl  enjoyed 
a  succes  d’ 'execration. 

A  different  success  awaited  his  Thames  etchings  in  Paris,  where  they 
were  shown  in  a  dealer’s  gallery.  Baudelaire  saw  them  and  understood, 
as  he  was  the  first  to  understand  the  work  of  Manet,  Poe,  Wagner, 
and  many  others.  He  wrote  : 

“  Tout  recemment ,  un  jeune  artiste  americain,  M.  Whistler,  exposait 
d  la  galerie  Martinet  une  serie  d’eaux  jortes ,  subtiles ,  eveillees  cornme  V im¬ 
provisation  et  I’ inspiration,  representant  les  bords  de  la  T ami se  ;  merveil- 
leux fouillis  d’agres,  de  vergues ,  de  cordages  ;  chaos  de  brumes,  defourneaux 
et  de  fumees  tire-bouchonnees ;  poesie  projonde  et  compliquee  d’une  vaste 
cap  it  ale.” 

According  to  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti,  Whistler  soon  moved  to  Queen’s 
Road,  Chelsea:  “I  fancy  that  the  houses  in  Queen’s  Road  have  been  much 
altered  since  Whistler  was  there  in  1862-63.  They  were  then  low  (say 
two-storeyed),  quite  old-fashioned  houses,  of  a  cosy,  homely  character, 
with  small  forecourts.  I  have  a  kind  of  idea  that  Whistler’s  house  was 
No.  12,  but  this  is  quite  uncertain  to  me.*  As  my  brother  and  I  were 
much  in  that  neighbourhood,  to  and  fro,  prior  to  settling  down  in  No.  16 
Cheyne  Walk,  we  came  into  contact  with  Whistler,  who  every  now  and 
then  accompanied  us  on  our  jaunts.  I  forget  how  it  was  exactly  that 
we  got  introduced  to  him  ;  possibly  by  Mr.  Algernon  Swinburne, 
who  was  also  to  be  an  inmate  of  No.  1 6.  Either  (as  I  think)  before 
meeting  Whistler  or  just  about  the  time  we  met  him,  we  had  seen  one 
or  two  of  his  paintings.  At  the  Piano  must  have  been  one,  and  we  most 
heartily  admired  him,  and  discerned  unmistakably  that  he  was  destined 
for  renown,” 

The  friendship  may  have  led  to  Whistler’s  interest  in  black-and- 
white,  for  in  England  it  was  Rossetti  and  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brother¬ 
hood  who  revolutionised  illustration  and  proved  it  a  dignified  and 

*  Not  only  have  the  houses  been  much  altered,  but  the  name  of  the  street 
has  changed,  and  Queen’s  Road  is  now  Royal  Hospital  Road.  The  present  No.  12 
corresponds  to  Mr.  Rossetti’s  description,  but  we  think  it  more  likely-— and  he 
does  too — that  Whistler  lived  in  one  of  the  little  brick  cottages  of  Paradise 
Row.  In  any  case,  we  doubt  if  he  had  more  than  rooms  or  lodgings.  He 
gave  us  to  understand  that  the  house  he  took  shortly  after,  in  Lindsey  Row, 
was  his  first  in  London. 

70 


[1862 


The  Beginnings  in  London 


serious  form  of  art.  The  more  brilliant  of  the  younger  men  were 
working  for  the  illustrated  magazines,  and  Whistler  found  a  place 
among  them.  He  made  six  drawings  in  1862.  Four  appeared  in 
Once  a  Week:  T he  Morning  bejore  the  Massacre  oj  St.  Bartholomew , 
Count  Burckhardt ,  The  Major's  Daughter,  The  Relief  Fund  in  Lancashire , 
intended  to  be  used  as  an  illustration  to  the  reprint  of  an  address  by 
Tennyson  on  the  subject  of  the  famine  in  Lancashire,  but  never  written 
because  of  his  illness.  To  this  fund  we  believe  Whistler  contributed 
a  drawing.  The  two  other  illustrations,  for  The  First  Sermon,  were 
published  in  Good  Words.  They  were  drawn  on  wood  in  pencil,  pen, 
and  wash,  are  full  of  character,  and,  in  the  use  of  line,  are  like  his 
etchings.  They  were  engraved  by  the  Dalziel  Brothers  and  Joseph 
Swain,  and  from  Mr.  Strahan,  the  publisher  of  Once  a  W eek,  we  have 
these  additional  facts  : 

“  They  were  arranged  for  by  Edward  Dalziel,  and  I  cannot  say 
how  he  came  to  know  the  artist  or  his  work,  as  Mr.  Whistler  was  young 
then,  and,  as  far  as  I  know,  had  not  contributed  to  any  magazine. 
The  average  price  we  paid  to  artists  was  nine  pounds,  and  we  reckoned 
that  the  same  amount  had  to  be  paid  for  engravings.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  sum  paid  to  Mr.  Whistler  was  nine  pounds  for  each  drawing.” 

We  showed  Whistler  once  The  Morning  bejore  the  Massacre  oj 
St.  Bartholomew.  “  Well,  now,  not  bad,  you  know— not  bad  even  then  I  ” 
and  he  followed,  with  his  expressive  little  finger,  the  flowing  line, 
pointing  to  the  hand  lost  in  the  draperies.  This  and  The  Major's 
Daughter  were  the  two  he  preferred,  and  when  J.  was  preparing  The 
History  of  Modern  Illustration  Whistler  picked  them  out  as  “  very  pretty 
ones  ”  that  should  be  reproduced,  though,  if  but  a  single  example 
of  his  work  could  be  used,  he  wished  The  Morning  bejore  the  Massacre 
to  be  selected,  for  it  was  “  as  delicate  as  an  etching,  and  altogether 
characteristic  and  personal.”  Count  Burckhardt  he  did  not  care  for, 
insisting  that  he  would  rather  not  be  represented  if  this  were  to  be  the 
only  example  in  the  book.  “  It  was  never  a  favourite,”  he  added. 

The  four  drawings  of  Once  a  Week  were  reprinted  in  "1  hornbury’s 
Legendary  Ballads,  18 76.  Thornbury  implied  that  the  drawings  were 
made  for  the  book,  and  thought  that  “the  startling  drawings  by 
Mr.  Whistler  prove  his  singular  power  of  hand,  strong  artistic  feeling, 
and  daring  manner.” 

1862] 


71 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Our  copy  belonged  to  George  Augustus  Sala.  On  the  margin  of 
The  Morning  bejore  the  Massacre  he  wrote :  “  Jemmy  Whistler.— Clever, 
sketchy,  and  incomplete,  like  everything  he  has  done.  A  loaf  of 
excellent,  fine  flour,  but  slack-baked.”  So  Sala  believed  in  1883,  and 
it  is  typical  of  the  time. 

Another  important  work  of  1862  was  The  Last  oj  Old  Westminster. 
Mr.  Arthur  Severn  knows  more  about  it  than  anyone,  as  his  account  to 
us  explains :  “  On  my  return  from  Rome  to  join  my  brother  in  his  rooms 
in  Manchester  Buildings,  on  the  Thames  at  Westminster  Bridge  (where 
the  New  Scotland  Yard  now  is),  I  found  Whistler  beginning  his  picture 
of  Westminster  Bridge.  My  brother  had  given  him  permission  to  use 
our  sitting-room,  with  its  bow-windows  looking  over  the  river  and 
towards  the  bridge.  He  was  always  courteous  and  pleasant  in  manner, 
and  it  was  interesting  to  see  him  at  work.  The  bridge  was  in  perspective, 
still  surrounded  with  piles,  for  it  had  only  just  been  finished.  It  was 
the  piles  with  their  rich  colour  and  delightful  confusion  that  took  his 
fancy,  not  the  bridge,  which  hardly  showed.  He  would  look  steadily 
at  a  pile  for  some  time,  then  mix  up  the  colour,  then,  holding  his  brush 
quite  at  the  end,  with  no  mahlstick,  make  a  downward  stroke  and  the 
pile  was  done.  I  remember  his  looking  very  carefully  at  a  hansom, 
cab  that  had  pulled  up  for  some  purpose  on  the  bridge,  and  in  a  few 
strokes  he  got  the  look  of  it  perfectly.  He  was  long  over  the  picture, 
sometimes  coming  only  once  a  week,  and  we  got  rather  tired  of  it. 
One  day  some  friends  came  to  see  it.  He  stood  it  against  a  table  in 
an  upright  position  for  them  to  see ;  it  suddenly  fell  on  its  face,  to  my 
brother’s  disgust,  as  he  had  just  got  a  new  carpet.  Luckily  Whistler’s 
sky  was  pretty  dry,  and  I  don’t  think  the  picture  got  any  damage,  and 
the  artist  was  most  good-natured  about  my  brother’s  anxiety  lest  the 
carpet  should  have  suffered.” 

The  Last  of  Old  W estminster  was  ready  for  the  Academy  of  1863, 
to  which  it  was  sent  with  six  prints  :  Weary ,  Old  Westminster  Bridge, 
Hungerford  Bridge,  Monsieur  Becquet,  The  Forge,  The  Pool.  The  dignity 
of  composition  in  the  picture  and  the  vigour  of  handling  impressed 
all  who  saw  it  in  the  London  Memorial  Exhibition,  though  they  had 
to  regret  its  shocking  condition,  cracked  from  end  to  end.  It  failed  to 
impress  Academicians  in  1863,  and  was  badly  hung,  as  were  the  prints, 
reproductive  work  being  then,  as  now,  preferred  to  original  etching. 

72  [1863 


C See  page  65  ) 


ANNIE  HADEN 
DRY-POINT.  G.  62 


The  Beginnings  in  London 

The  White  Girl ,  after  its  Berners  Street  success,  was  sent  by  Whistler 
to  the  Salon.  He  took  it  to  Paris,  to  Fantin’s  studio,  there  having  it 
unrolled  and  framed.  It  is  hard  to  say  why  the  strongest  work  of  the 
strongest  younger  men  was  rejected  from  the  Salon  of  1 863.  Fantin, 
Legros,  Manet,  Bracquemond,  Jongkind,  Harpignies,  Cazin,  Jean-Paul 
Laurens,  Vollon,  Whistler  were  refused.  It  was  a  scandal  ;  1859  was 
nothing  to  it.  The  town  was  in  an  uproar  that  reached  the  ears  of 
the  Emperor.  Martinet,  the  dealer,  offered  to  show  the  rejected 
pictures  in  his  gallery.  But  before  this  was  arranged,  Napoleon  III. 
ordered  that  a  Salon  des  Refuses  should  be  held  in  the  same  building 
as  the  official  Salon ,  the  Palais  de  V Industrie.  The  decree  was  published 
in  the  Moniteur  for  April  24,  1863.  The  notice  was  issued  by  the 
Directeur-General  of  the  Imperial  Museums,  and  the  exhibition  opened 
on  May  15.  The  success  was  as  great  as  the  scandal.  The  exhibition 
was  the  talk  of  the  town,  it  was  caricatured  as  the  Exposition  des 
Comiques ,  and  parodied  as  the  Club  des  Refuses  at  the  Varietes  ;  everyone 
rushed  to  the  galleries.  The  rooms  were  crowded  by  artists,  because, 
in  the  midst  of  much  no  doubt  weak  and  foolish,  the  best  work  of  the 
day  was  shown  ;  by  the  public,  because  of  the  stir  the  affair  made. 
The  public  laughed  with  the  idea  that  it  was  a  duty  to  laugh,  and 
because  the  critics  said  that  never  was  a  succ'es  pour  nre  better  deserved. 
Zola  described  in  VCEuvre  the  gaiety  and  cruelty  of  the  crowd,  con¬ 
vulsed  and  hysterical  in  front  of  La  Dame  en  Blanc.  Hamerton  wrote 
in  the  Fine  Arts  Quarterly  : 

“  The  hangers  must  have  thought  her  particularly  ugly,  for  they 
have  given  her  a  sort  of  place  of  honour,  before  an  opening  through 
which  all  pass,  so  that  nobody  misses  her.  I  watched  several  parties, 
to  see  the  impression  Ehe  Woman  in  White  made  on  them.  They  all 
stopped  instantly,  struck  with  amazement.  This  for  two  or  three 
seconds,  then  they  always  looked  at  each  other  and  laughed.  Here, 
for  once,  I  have  the  happiness  to  be  quite  of  the  popular  way  of  thinking. 

On  the  other  hand,  Fernand  Desnoyers,  who  wrote  a  pamphlet  on 
the  Salon  des  Rejuses,  thought  that  Whistler  was  “  le  plus  spirite  des 
peintreSy  ’  and  the  painting  the  most  original  that  had  passed  before 
the  jury  of  the  Salon,  altogether  remarkable,  at  once  simple  and  fantastic, 
the  portrait  of  a  spirit,  a  medium,  though  of  a  beauty  so  peculiar 
that  the  public  did  not  know  whether  to  think  it  beautiful  or  ugly.  Paul 
1863]  73 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Mantz  considered  it  the  most  important  picture  in  the  exhibition,  full 
of  knowledge  and  strange  charm,  and  his  article  in  the  Gazette  des 
Beaux -Arts  is  the  more  interesting  because  he  described  the  picture  as 
a  Symphonie  du  Blanc  some  years  before  Whistler  called  it  so,  and 
pointed  out  that  it  carried  on  French  tradition,  for,  a  hundred  years 
earlier,  painters  had  shown  in  the  Salon  studies  of  white  upon  white. 

The  picture  hardly  explained  the  sensation  of  its  first  appearance 
when  we  saw  it  with  Miss  Alexander,  the  Mother,  Carlyle,  The  Fur 
Jacket,  and  Irving  in  the  London  Memorial  Exhibition.  But  it  seemed 
revolutionary  enough  in  the  sixties,  to  become  the  clou  of  the  Salon  des 
Refuses,  though  nothing  was  further  from  Whistler’s  intention.  It 
eclipsed  Manet’s  Dejeuner  sur  Vherbe,  then  called  Le  Bain. 

Whistler  was  in  Amsterdam  with  Legros,  looking  at  Rembrandt 
with  delight,  at  Van  der  Heist  with  disappointment,  etching  Amsterdam 
jrom  the  Tolhuis,  no  doubt  hunting  for  old  paper  and  adding  to  his 
collection  of  blue  and  white,  when  the  news  came  of  the  reception  of 
his  picture  in  Paris,  and  he  wrote  to  Fantin  that  he  longed  to  be  there 
and  in  the  movement.  It  was  a  satisfaction  that  the  picture,  slighted 
in  London,  should  be  honoured  in  Paris.  He  was  all  impatience  to 
know  what  was  said  in  the  Cafe  de  Bade,  the  cafe  of  Manet,  and  by  the 
critics. 

To  add  to  his  triumph  in  Paris,  official  honours  were  coming  to 
him  in  Holland  and  England.  Some  of  his  etchings  were  in  an  exhibi¬ 
tion  at  The  Hague,  though  he  said  he  did  not  know  how  they  got  there, 
and  he  was  given  one  of  three  gold  medals  awarded  to  foreigners— his 
first  medal.  Though  atrociously  hung  at  the  Academy,  his  prints 
were  honoured  at  the  British  Museum,  where  twelve  were  bought  for 
the  Print  Room  this  year. 

The  excitement  did  not  keep  him  from  work,  to  which,  as  he  wrote 
to  Fantin,  wandering  was  a  drawback.  He  felt  the  need  of  his  studio, 
of  “  the  familiar  all  about  him.”  The  “  familiar  ”  he  loved  best  was 
in  London,  and  when  he  returned  he  began  to  look  for  a  house  of  his 
own.  It  was  fortunate  for  him  that  his  mother  was  in  England.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War,  in  which  Whistler  took  the  keenest 
interest  as  a  patriot  and  a  “  West  Point  man,”  she  had  been  in  Richmond 
with  her  son  William,  serving  as  surgeon  in  the  Confederate  Army, 
had  run  the  blockade,  and  come  to  join  her  other  children  in  London. 
74  [1863 


The  Beginnings  in  London 

Whistler  no  longer  made  the  Hadens’  house  his  home.  The  rela¬ 
tions  of  the  brothers -in-law  had  become  strained,  both  being  of  strong 
character.  Haden  had  had  much  to  put  up  with,  while  Whistler,  the 
artist,  resented  the  criticism  of  Haden,  the  surgeon.  One  story  we 
have  from  Whistler  explains  the  situation,  and  though  he  never  gave  a 
date,  it  can  be  told  here.  Haden  was  the  schoolmaster  Whistler  found 
him  when  they  first  met  ;  one’s  older  relatives  have  a  way  of  forgetting 
one  can  grow  up.  Once,  when  Whistler  had  done  something  more 
enormous  than  ever  in  Haden’s  eyes,  he  was  summoned  to  the  work¬ 
room  upstairs,  and  lectured  until  he  refused  to  listen  to  another  word. 
He  started  down  the  four  flights  of  stairs,  with  Haden  close  behind, 
still  lecturing.  At  last  the  front  door  was  reached.  And  then  : 
“  Oh,  dear,”  said  Whistler,  “  I’ve  left  my  hat  upstairs,  and  now  we 
have  got  to  go  all  through  this  again  S  ”  As  there  was  no  further 
question  of  Whistler  living  with  the  Hadens,  it  was  decided  that  he 
and  his  mother  should  live  together,  and  some  of  his  most  delightful 
years  were  those  that  followed. 


CHAPTER  X:  CHELSEA  DAYS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
SIXTY-THREE  TO  EIGHTEEN  SIXTY-SIX. 

Whistler’s  first  house  in  London  was  No.  7  Lindsey  Row,  Chelsea, 
now  101  Cheyne  Walk.  It  adjoins  the  old  palace  of  Lord  Lindsey, 
which  still  stands,  the  original  building  divided  into  several  houses, 
stuccoed  and  modernised,  much  of  its  stateliness  gone,  though  the 
spacious  stairway  and  part  of  the  panelling  have  been  preserved. 
Whistler’s  was  a  three-storey  house,  with  a  garden  in  front,  humble 
compared  with  the  palaces  Academicians  were  building.  “  All  these 
artists  complain  of  nothing  but  the  too  great  prosperity  of  the  profession 
in  these  days,”  Hamerton  wrote  to  his  wife  ;  “  they  tell  me  an  artist’s 
life  is  a  princely  one  now.”  But  Whistler  lived  his  own  life,  and  from 
his  windows  he  could  paint  what  he  wanted.  Only  the  road  separated 
the  house  from  the  river  ;  opposite  was  Battersea  Church  and  a  group 
of  factory  chimneys ;  old  Battersea  Bridge  stretched  across,  and  at 
night  he  could  see  the  lights  of  Cremorne. 

At  the  end  of  the  Row  the  boat -builder  Greaves  lived.  He  had 
1863]  75 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

worked  in  Chelsea  for  years.  He  had  rowed  Turner  about  on  the  river, 
and  his  two  sons  were  to  row  Whistler.  One  of  the  sons,  Mr.  Walter 
Greaves,  has  told  us  that  Mrs.  Booth,  a  big,  hard,  coarse  Scotchwoman, 
was  always  with  Turner  when  he  came  for  a  boat.  Turner  would 
ask  Greaves  what  kind  of  a  day  it  was  going  to  be,  and  if  Greaves 
answered  “  Fine,”  he  would  get  Greaves  to  row  them  across  to  Battersea 
Church,  or  to  the  fields,  now  Battersea  Park.  If  Greaves  was  doubtful 
Turner  would  say  :  “  Well,  Mrs.  Booth,  we  won’t  go  far,”  and  after¬ 
wards  for  the  sons-— -boys  at  the  time— -Turner  in  their  memory  was 
overshadowed  by  her.  They  had  also  known  Martin,  the  painter  of  big 
Scriptural  machines,  whose  house  was  in  the  middle  of  the  Row.  It 
had  a  balcony,  and  on  fine  moonlight  nights,  or  nights  of  dramatic 
skies,  Greaves  or  one  of  the  sons  would  knock  him  up,  and  keep  on 
knocking  until  they  saw  the  old  man  in  his  nightcap  on  the  balcony, 
where  he  would  get  to  work  and  sketch  the  sky  until  daylight.  Greaves 
remembered,  too,  Brunei,  who  built  the  Great  Eastern,  living  at  the 
end  of  the  Row.  Of  other  associations,  dating  a  couple  of  centuries 
before,  the  little  Moravian  graveyard  at  the  back  was  a  reminder, 
for  Lindsey  Palace  was  one  of  the  first  refuges  of  Zinzendorf  and  the 
Brotherhood.  A  hundred  years  or  so  later  Mrs.  Gaskell  was  born  there. 
The  Row,  indeed,  was  a  place  of  history.  But  Whistler  was  to  make  it 
more  famous. 

The  two  Greaves,  Walter  and  Harry,  painted,  and  Whistler  let 
them  work  with  and  for  him.  We  have  often  heard  him  speak  of  them 
as  his  pupils.  From  them  he  learned  to  row.  “  He  taught  us  to 
paint,  and  we  taught  him  the  waterman’s  jerk,”  Mr,  Walter  Greaves 
says.  Whistler  would  start  with  them  in  the  twilight,  Albert  Moore 
sometimes  his  companion,  and  they  would  stay  on  the  river  for  hours, 
often  all  night,  lingering  in  the  lights  of  Cremorne,  drifting  into  the 
shadows  of  the  bridge.  Or  else  he  was  up  with  the  dawn,  throwing 
pebbles  at  their  windows  to  wake  them  and  make  them  come  and  pull 
him  up  or  down  stream.  At  night,  on  the  river  and  at  Cremorne,  he 
was  never  without  brown  paper  and  black  and  white  chalk,  with  which 
he  made  his  notes  for  the  Nocturnes  and  the  seemingly  simple,  but  really 
complicated,  firework  pictures.  In  the  Gardens  it  was  easy  to  put 
down  what  he  wanted  under  the  lamps.  On  the  river  he  had  to  trust  to 
his  memory,  only  noting  the  reflections  in  white  chalk. 

76  [1863 


Chelsea  Days 

Walter  Greaves,  in  his  exhibition  of  1911,  made  the  statement  or 
allowed  it  to  be  made,  that  before  he  and  his  brother  knew  Whistler  they 
were  "  painting  pictures  of  the  Thames  and  Cremorne  Gardens  both  day 
were  pain  Jf  statement  Mr.  Greaves  was  unable  to  sub- 

stantUte  \>y  date's  and  facts,  and  as  other  dates  and  facts  given  in  his 

They  were  to  carry  on  his  tradition,  and  this  included  his  method 
and  e  en  a  t  mesX  his  colours  which  they  used,  while  Whistler  as 
undoubtedly  worked  on  their  canvases  and  plates  as  he  worked  on 
Xose  of  other  pupils  at  later  dates.  But  the  statement  that  he  refused 

^  r  t^her 

icture  we  "  ^^^1^  ’,86a 

ms  beer;:  e  hSs::  **  *  **  - *»-  ^ 

r73  There  are  two  distinct  qualities  of  work  in  the  picture  wMch 

mmt  be  the  work  either  of  two  people  or  of  two  periods.  The  pie 

S  the  bridge  are  hard  and  tight,  the  background  resembles  Whistler  s 
ot  the  bridge  are  x  &  Whistler  nor  Greaves  had  painted  a 

work  of  years  later,  for  neither  Wtotl«  ^  ^  misstate. 

Nocturne  in  that  manner  at  the  Kplittle 

m^ts  of  Greaves  were  used  by  critics  all  over  the  world  to  belittle 

“one  time,  master  and  pupils  attended  a  life  class  held  in  the  even¬ 
ing  by  M.  Barthe,  a  Frenchman,  in  Limerston  Street,  not  far  from  the 
Row.  Mr.  J.  E.  Christie  was  another  student,  and  from  him  we  av 

the  following  account  : 

1863] 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Whistler  was  not  a  regular  attender,  but  came  occasionally,  and 
always  accompanied  by  two  young  men— brothers- — Greaves  by  name. 
They  simply  adored  Whistler,  and  were  not  unlike  him  in  appearance, 
owing  to  an  unconscious  imitation  of  his  dress  and  manner.  It  was 
amusing  to  watch  the  movements  of  the  trio  when  they  came  into  the 
studio  (always  late).  The  curtain  that  hung  in  front  of  the  door  would 
suddenly  be  pulled  back  by  one  of  the  Greaves,  and  a  trim,  prim  little 
man,  with  a  bright,  merry  eye,  would  step  in  with  ‘  Good  evening,’ 
cheerfully  said  to  the  whole  studio.  After  a  second’s  survey,  while 
taking  off  his  gloves,  he  would  hand  his  hat  to  the  other  brother,  who 
hung  it  up  carefully  as  if  it  were  a  sacred  thing,  then  he  would  wipe 
his  brow  and  moustache  with  a  spotless  handkerchief,  then  in  the  most 
careful  way  he  arranged  his  materials,  and  sat  down.  Then,  having 
imitated  in  a  general  way  the  preliminaries,  the  two  Greaves  sat  down  on 
either  side  of  him.  There  was  a  sort  of  tacit  understanding  that  his 
and  their  studies  should  not  be  subjected  to  our  rude  gaze.  I,  however, 
saw,  with  the  tail  of  my  eye,  as  it  were,  that  Whistler  made  small  draw¬ 
ings  on  brown  paper  with  coloured  chalks,  that  the  figure  (always  a 
female  figure)  would  be  about  four  inches  long,  that  the  drawing  was 
bold  and  fine,  and  riot  slavishly  like  the  model.  The  comical  part  was 
that  his  satellites  didn’t  draw  from  the  model  at  all,  that  I  saw,  but  sat 
looking  at  Whistler’s  drawing  and  copying  that  as  far  as  they  could. 
He  never  entered  into  the  conversation,  which  was  unceasing,  but 
occasionally  rolled  a  cigarette  and  had  a  few  whiffs,  the  Greaves 
brothers  always  requiring  their  whiffs  at  the  same  moment.  The  trio 
packed  up,  and  left  before  the  others  always.” 

Sometimes  in  the  evening  Whistler,  with  his  mother,  would  go  to 
the  Greaves’  house  after  dinner,  and  work  there.  Often  he  sent  in 
dessert,  that  they  might  enjoy  and  talk  over  it  together.  Then  he 
would  bring  out  his  brown  paper  and  chalks  and  make  studies  of  the 
family  and  of  himself,  or  sketches  of  pictures  he  had  seen,  working 
until  midnight  and  after.  In  those  days  he  never  wrent  to  bed  until 
he  had  drawn  a  portrait  of  himself,  he  told  us.  Many  of  the  portraits 
are  in  existence.  The  sister  was  an  accomplished  musician,  and 
Whistler  delighted  in  music,  though  he  was  not  critical,  for  he  was 
known  to  call  the  passing  hurdy-gurdy  into  his  front  garden,  and  have 
it  ground  under  his  windows.  Occasionally  the  brothers  played  so  that 
78  [1863 


Chelsea  Days 

Whistler  might  dance.  He  was  always  full  of  drolleries  and  fun.  He 
would  imitate  a  man  sawing,  or  two  men  fighting  at  the  door  so  cleverly 
that  Mrs.  Greaves  never  ceased  to  be  astonished  when  he  walked  into  the 
room  alone  and  unhurt.  He  delighted  in  American  mechanical  toys, 
and  his  house  was  full  of  Japanese  dolls.  One  great  doll,  dressed  like  a 
man,  he  would  take  with  him  not  only  to  the  Greaves’,  but  to  dinners 
at  Little  Holland  House,  where  the  Prinseps  then  lived,  and  to  other 
houses,  where  he  put  it  through  amazing  performances. 

Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  was,  by  this  time,  settled  in  Tudor  House 
(now  Queen’s  House),  not  far  from  Lindsey  Row,  and  Swinburne  and 
George  Meredith  were  living  with  him.  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  came 
for  two  or  three  nights  every  week,  and  Frederick  Sandys,  Charles 
Augustus  Howell,  William  Bell  Scott,  and,  several  years  later,  Mr. 
Theodore  Watts-Dunton  were  constant  visitors. 

For  Rossetti  Whistler  had  a  genuine  affection  and,  in  his  early 
enthusiasm,  wrote  of  him  as  “  un  grand  artiste  ”  to  Fantm.  But 
later  his  enthusiasm  did  not  blind  him.  “  A  charming  fellow,  the  only 
white  man  in  all  that  crowd  of  painters,”  he  assured  us  ;  “  not  an  artist, 
you  know,  but  charming  and  a  gentleman.”  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  says 
that  Rossetti  got  tired  of  Whistler  after  awhile,  and  considered  him 
a  brainless  fellow,  who  had  no  more  than  a  malicious  quick  wit  at  the 
expense  of  others,  and  no  genuine  philosophy  or  humour.  But  Whistler 
never  realised  any  change  in  Rossetti  s  feelings  towards  him. 

It  was  inevitable  that  Whistler  and  Rossetti  should  disagree  in 
matters  of  art.  Whistler  asked  Rossetti  why  he  did  not  frame  his 
sonnets.  Rossetti  thought  that  the  “  new  French  School,”  in  which 
Whistler  had  been  trained,  was  “  simple  putrescence  and  decomposi¬ 
tion.”  It  is  said  that  Rossetti  influenced  Whistler.  Whistler  influ¬ 
enced  him  as  much.  They  influenced  each  other  in  the  choice  of 
models,  in  a  certain  luxuriance  of  type  and  the  manner  of  presenting 
it,  an  influence  which  was  superficial  and  transitory. 

Upon  many  other  subjects  they  agreed.  Rossetti  shared  Whistler  s 
delight  in  drollery  and  his  love  of  the  fantastic.  No  one  understood 
better  than  Whistler  why  Rossetti  filled  his  house  and  garden  with 
strange  beasts.  It  was  from  Whistler  we  heard  of  the  peacock  and 
the  gazelle,  who  fought  until  the  peacock  was  left  standing  desolate, 
with  his  tail  strewed  upon  the  ground.  From  Whistler,  too,  we  had 
1863]  79 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

the  story  of  the  bull  of  Bashan,  bought  at  Cremorne,  and  tied  to  a 
stake  in  the  garden,  and  Rossetti  would  come  everyday  and  talk  to  him, 
until  once  the  bull  got  so  excited  that  he  pulled  up  the  stake  and  made 
for  Rossetti,  who  went  tearing  round  and  round  a  tree,  a  little  fat 
person  with  coat-tails  flying,  finally,  by  a  supreme  effort,  rushing  up 
the  garden  steps  just  in  time  to  slam  the  door  in  the  bull’s  face.  Rossetti 
called  his  man  and  ordered  him  to  tie  up  the  bull,  but  the  man,  who  had 
looked  out  for  the  menagerie,  who  had  gone  about  the  house  with  pea¬ 
cocks  and  other  creatures  under  his  arms,  who  had  rescued  armadilloes 
from  irate  neighbours,  who  had  captured  monkeys  from  the  tops  of 
chimneys,  struck  when  it  came  to  tying  up  a  bull  of  Bashan  on  the 
rampage,  and  gave  a  month’s  warning.  From  Whistler  also  we  first 
had  the  story  of  the  wombat,  bought  at  Jamrach’s  by  Rossetti  for  its 
name.  Whistler  was  dining  at  Tudor  House,  and  the  wombat  was 
brought  on  the  table  with  coffee  and  cigars,  while  Meredith  talked 
brilliantly,  and  Swinburne  read  aloud  passages  from  the  Leaves  of  Grass. 
But  Meredith  was  witty  as  well  as  brilliant,  and  the  special  target  of  his 
wit  was  Rossetti,  who,  as  he  had  invited  two  or  three  of  his  patrons, 
did  not  appreciate  the  jest.  The  evening  ended  less  amiably  than  it 
began,  and  no  one  thought  of  the  wombat  until  late,  and  then  it 
had  disappeared.  It  was  searched  for  high  and  low.  Days  passed, 
weeks  passed,  months  passed,  and  there  was  no  wombat.  It  was  regretted, 
forgotten.  Long  afterwards  Rossetti,  who  was  not  much,  of  a  smoker, 
got  out  the  box  of  cigars  he  had  not  touched  since  that  dinner.  He 
opened  it.  Not  a  cigar  was  left,  but  there  was  the  skeleton  of  the 
wombat. 

Whistler  and  Rossetti  also  agreed  about  many  of  the  group  who 
met  at  Tudor  House,  though  eventually  Whistler  felt  what  appeared  to 
him  the  disloyalty  of  Swinburne  and  Burne-Jones.  He  was  never,  at 
any  time,  so  intimate  with  Burne-Jones  as  with  Swinburne,  who  often 
came  to  the  house  in  Lindsey  Row,  not  only  for  Whistler’s  sake,  but  out 
of  affection  for  Whistler’s  mother.  Miss  Chapman  tells  us  that  Swin¬ 
burne  was  once  taken  ill  there  suddenly,  and  Mrs.  Whistler  nursed  him 
till  he  was  well.  Miss  Chapman  also  remembers  Swinburne  sitting 
at  Mrs.  Whistler’s  feet,  and  saying  to  her  :  “  Mrs.  Whistler,  what  has 
happened  ?  It  used  to  be  Algernon  !  ”  Mrs.  Whistler,  who  had 
accepted  Whistler’s  friends  and  their  ways,  said  quietly,  “  You  have  not 
Ro  [1863 


h rati 


THE  WHITE  GIRL 
SYMPHONY  IN  WHITE.  NO.  I 

OIL 

In  the  po3sess:on  of  j.  H.  Whittemore,  Esq. 


( See  i>aqc  67) 


Chelsea  Days 

been  to  see  us  for  a  long  while,  you  know.  If  you  come  as  you  did, 
it  will  be  Algernon  again.”  And  he  came,  and  the  friendship  lasted 
until  the  eighties,  when  he  published  the  article  in  the  Fortnightly 
Review  which  Whistler  could  not  forgive. 

Meredith  wrote  us  of  these  Chelsea  days  ;  I  knew  Whistler  and 
never  had  a  dissension  with  him,  though  merry  bouts  between  us 
were  frequent.  When  I  went  to  live  in  the  country,  we  rarely  met. 
He  came  down  to  stay  with  me  once.  He  was  a  lively  companion, 
never  going  out  of  his  way  to  take  offence,  but  with  the  springs  in  him 
prompt  for  the  challenge.  His  tales  of  his  student  life  in  Paris,  and 
of  one  Ernest,  with  whom  he  set  forth  on  a  holiday  journey  with  next 
to  nothing  in  his  purse,  were  imfayable .” 

Quarrels  and  distrust  never  made  Whistler  deny  the  charm  of 
Charles  Augustus  Howell,  remembered  for  the  part  he  played  in  the 
lives  of  some  of  the  most  distinguished  people  of  his  generation. 
Who  he  was,  where  he  came  from,  nobody  knew.  He  was  supposed 
to  be  associated  with  high,  but  nameless,  personages  in  Portugal, 
and  sent  by  them  on  a  secret  mission  to  England  ;  he  was  said  to 
have  been  involved  in  the  Orsini  conspiracy,  and  obliged  to  fly  for 
his  life  across  the  Channel.  According  to  Mr.  E.  T.  Cook,  he  was 
descended  from  Boabdil  il  Chico,  though  Rossetti  called  him  “  the 
cheeky.”  Mr.  Cook  says  that  in  his  youth,  as  he  used  to  tell,  he 
had  supported  his  family  by  diving  for  treasure,  and  had  lived  in 
Morocco  as  the  Sheik  of  a  Tribe.  But  Ford  Madox  Brown  described 
him  as  the  Munchausen  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  circle.  The  unquestion¬ 
able  fact  is  that  he  was  a  man  of  great  personal  charm  and  unusual 
business  capacity.  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  has  written  of  him :  As  a 
salesman — with  his  open  manner,  winning  address,  and  his  exhaustless 
gift  of  amusing  talk,  not  innocent  of  high  colouring  and  of  actual 
blague — Howell  was  unsurpassable.” 

He  was  secretary  to  Ruskin  ;  he  was  Rossetti’s  man  of  affairs  ; 
he  became  Whistler’s,  though  on  a  less  definite  basis.  He  appears  in 
published  reminiscences  as  the  magnificent  prototype  of  the  author’s 
agent.  His  talk  was  one  of  his  recommendations  to  both  Rossetti 
and  Whistler.  Rossetti  rejoiced  in  Howell’s  “  Niagara  of  lies,”  and 
immortalised  them  : 


1863] 


F 


81 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

“  There’s  a  Portuguese  -person  called  Howell, 

Who  lays  on  his  lies  with  a  trowel ; 

W hen  I  goggle  my  eyes. 

And  start  with  surprise, 

5 Tis  at  the  monstrous  hig  lies  told  by  Howell .” 

Whisller  desaihe.!  him  as  "  the  wonderful  man,  the  genius,  the 
Gil  Mas-Robmson  Crusoe  hero  out  of  his  proper  time,  the  creature 
of  top-boots  and  plumes,  splendidly  flamboyant,  the  real  hero  of  the 
Picaresque  novel,  forced  by  modern  conditions  into  other  adventures 
and  along  other  roads.” 

Whistler,  gave  Howell,  credit  for  more  than  picturesqueness.  He 
had  the  instinct  for  beautiful  things,  Whistler  said  :  “  He  knew  them 
and  made  himself  indispensable  by  knowing  them.  He  was  of  the 
greatest  service  to  Rossetti  ;  he  helped  Watts  to  sell  his  pictures 
and  raise  his  prices  ;  he  acted  as  artistic  adviser  to  Mr.  Howard, 
Lord  Carlisle.  He  had  the  gift  of  intimacy ;  he  was  at  once  a  friend, 
on  closest  terms  of  confidence.  He  introduced  everybody  to  every¬ 
body  else,  he  entangled  everybody  with  everybody  else,  and  it  was  easier 
to  get  involved  with  Howell  than  to  get  rid  of  him.” 

Many  years  passed  before  there  was  any  wish  on  Whistler’s  part  to 
get  rid  of  him.  He  was  soon  as  frequent  a  visitor  at  Lindsey  Row 
as  at  Tudor  House.  For  a  time  he  lived  at  Putney,  and  Whistler 
used  to  take  his  morning  pull  up  the  river  to  breakfast  with  him.  Of 
none  of  the  Rossetti  group  did  Whistler  so  often  talk  to  us  as  of  Howell 
telling  us.  his  adventures-adventures  in  pursuit  of  old  furniture  and 
china  until  he  was  known  to,  and  loved  and  hated  by,  every  pawnbroker 
m.  London,  and  seemed  to  spend  all  his  time  with  rare  and  beautiful 
things  ;  adventures  with  creditors  and  bailiffs,  once  his  collection  of 
blue  pots  saved  by  a  device  only  Howell  could  have  invented,  forty 
blue  pots  carried  off  in  forty  four-wheelers  to  the  law-courts,  where 
he  was  complimented  by  the  judge  and  awarded  heavy  damages  by 
the  jury  ;  adventures  as  vestryman,  giving  teas  to  hundreds  of  school- 
children  ;  adventures  at  Selsea  Bill,  where  three  cottages  were  turned 
into  a  house  for  himself  and  he  swaggered  in  the  village  as  a  great 
personage,  finding  an  occupation  in  stripping  the  copper  from  an  old 
wreck  that  had  been  there  for  years  and  possibly  selling  it  to  etchers  ; 
82  [1863 


Chelsea  Days 

adventures  ending  eventually  in  Phs  Puddon  P apets,  of  which,  there  will 
be  something  to  say  when  the  date  of  their  publication  is  reached. 

Frederick  Sandys’  work  never  interested  Whistler,  but  Sandys 
the  man  was  a  delight  to  him,  though  the  two  lost  sight  of  each  other 
for  many  years.  Sandys  was  usually  without  a  penny  in  his  pocket, 
but  he  faced  the  situation  with  calm  and  swagger.  Accidents  never 
separated  him  from  his  white  waistcoat,  though  he  might  have  to  carry 
it  himself  to  the  laundry,  or  get  his  model,  “  the  little  girl  ”  he  called 
her,  to  carry  it  for  him.  You  were  always  meeting  them  with  the 
brown-paper  parcel,  Whistler  said,  and  at  the  nearest  friend  s  house 
he  would  stop  for  five  minutes  and  emerge  from  it  splendid  in  a  clean 
waistcoat.  In  money  matters  he  reckoned  like  a  Rothschild.  It  was 
always,  “  Huh  !  five  hundred,”  that  he  wanted.  Late  one  afternoon, 
as  Whistler  was  going  into  Rossetti’s,  he  met  Sandys  coming  out, 
unusually  depressed.  He  stopped  Whistler  : 

“  Do,  do  try  and  reason  with  Gabriel,  huh  !  He  is  most  thoughtless. 
He  says  I  must  go  to  America,  and  I  must  have  five  hundred,  huh, 
and  go  !  But,  if  I  could  go,  huh,  I  could  stay  ! 

Once  Whistler,  Sandys,  and  Rossetti  are  said  to  have  gone  to  Win- 
chelsea  with  W.  G.  Wills,  Irving,  and  Alfred  Calmour,  from  whom  the 
story  comes.  Whistler  and  Rossetti  wanted  to  see  a  beautiful  old 
house.  A  grumpy  old  man  lived  in  it,  but  Irving  warned  them  that 
he  would  probably  ask  them  all  to  dinner.  Rossetti  said  they  must 
refuse,  he  hated  dining  with  strangers ;  Whistler  was  sure  the  wine 
would  be  bad,  Sandys  as  certain  they  would  be  bored  by  infernal  chatter. 
But  they  went  to  the  house.  Whistler  knocked.  The  servant  opened. 
Whistler  asked  him  to  tell  his  master  that  “Mr.  Whistler  and  Mr.  Rossetti 
and  Mr.  Irving  wish  to  see  the  place.”  A  rough  voice  was  heard  . 
“  Shut  the  door,  Roger,  I  don’t  want  these  damned  show  people 
stealing  my  silver.”  Whistler  and  Rossetti  were  furious,  and  thought 
they  should  demand  an  apology.  “  He  thinks  we  are  confounded 
actors,”  Whistler  said.  “  My  dear  James,  he’s  never  heard  of  you  !  ” 
was  Irving’s  comment,  d  he  only  drawback  to  the  story  is  that  we 
doubt  if  Whistler  knew  Irving  until  after  he  had  ceased  to  see  anything 
of  Rossetti  and  Sandys. 

Whistler  got  to  know  other  friends  of  Rossetti’s,  and  he  drifted  to 
Ford  Madox  Brown’s,  in  Fitzroy  Square  :  “  Once  in  a  long  while  I  would 
1863]  83 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

take  my  gaiety,  my  sunniness,  to  Madox  Brown’s  receptions.  And 
there  were  always  the  most  wonderful  people-the  Blinds,  Swinburne 
anarchists,  poets  and  musicians,  all  kinds  and  sorts,  and,  in  an  inner 
r00m\  Rossettl  and  Mrs-  Morris  sitting  side  by  side  in  state,  being 
worshipped,  and,  fluttering  round  them,  Howell  with  a  broad  red 
ribbon  across  his  shirt-front,  a  Portuguese  decoration  hereditary  in 
the  family.” 

According  to  his  grandson,  Mr.  Ford  Madox  Hueffer,  Ford  Madox 
Brown  thought  so  much  of  Whistler’s  work  that  once,  knowing  Whistler 
wanted  money,  he  sent  round  among  his  friends  a  circular  praising 
Whistler  s  etchings  and  urging  their  purchase. 

Whistler  shared  Rossetti’s  interest  in  the  spiritual  manifestations 
that,  for  several  years,  agitated  the  circle  at  Tudor  House.  Fie  told 
us  once  of  the  strange  things  that  happened  when  he  went  to  seances 
at  Rossetti’s  with  Jo,  and  also  when  he  and  Jo  tried  the  same  things  in 
his  studio,  and  a  cousin  from  the  South,  long  dead,  talked  to  him  and 
told  him  much  that  no  one  else  could  have  known.  He  believed,  but 
he  gave  up  the  seances  when  they  threatened  to  become  engrossing, 
for  he  felt  that  he  would  be  obliged  to  sacrifice  to  them  the  work  he 
had  to  do  in  the  world. 

The  chief  bond  between  Whistler  and  Rossetti  was  their  love  for 
blue  and  white  and  Japanese  prints.  Whistler  was  in  Paris  in  i8c6 
w  en  Bracquemond  “  discovered  ”  Japan  in  a  little  volume  of  Hokusai’ 
used  for  packing  china,  and  rescued  by  DeMtre,  the  printer.  It 
passed  into  the  hands,  of  Laveille,  the  engraver,  and  from  him 
Bracquemond  obtained  it.  After  that,  Bracquemond  had  the  book 
always  by  him;  and  when  in  1862  Madame  Desoye,  who,  with  her 
husband,  had  lived  in  Japan,  opened  a  shop  under  the  arcades  of  the 
Rue  de  Rivoli,  the  enthusiasm  spread  to  Manet,  Fantin,  Tissot  Tacque- 
mart  and  Solon,  Baudelaire  and  the  De  Goncourts.  Rossetti  was 
supposed  to  have  made  it  the  fashion.  But  the  fashion  in  Paris  began 
before  Rossetti  owned  his  first  blue  pot  or  his  first  colour-print 
Whistler  brought  the  knowledge  and  the  love  of  the  art  to  London 
It  was  he  who  invented  blue  and  white  in  London,”  Mr  Murray 
Marks  assures  us,  and  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  is  as  certain  that  his  brother 
was  inspired  by  Whistler,  who  bought  not  only  blue  and  white  but 
sketch-books,  colour-prints,  lacquers,  kakemonos,  embroideries,  screens. 

4  [1863 


THE  FORGE 


Chelsea  Days 

“  In  his  house  in  Chelsea,  facing  Battersea  Bridge,”  Mr.  Severn  writes, 

“  he  had  lovely  blue  and  white,  Chinese  and  Japanese.”  The  only 
decorations,  except  the  harmony  of  colour,  were  the  prints  on  the  walls 
a  flight  of  Japanese  fans  in  one  place,  in  another  shelves  of  blue  an 
white.  People,  copying  him,  stuck  up  fans  anywhere,  and  hung  plates 
from  wires.  Whistler’s  fans  were  arranged  for  colour  and  line.  His 
decorations  bewildered  people  even  more  than  the  work  of.  the  new 
firm  of  Morris,  Marshall,  Faulkner  and  Co.  The  Victorian  artist 
covered  his  walls  with  tapestry,  filled  his  studio  with  costly  things, 
and  made  the  public  measure  beauty  by  price,  a  fact  overlooked  by 

Whistler,  but  never  by  Morris.  _  _  ^  „ 

Rossetti  joined  in  the  hunt  for  blue  and  white.  Henry  Treffy  Dun  , 

in  his  Recollections  of  Rossetti,  whose  assistant  he  was,  writes  that  Rossetti 
and  Whistler  “  each  tried  to  outwit  the  other  in  picking  up  the  choicest 
pieces  of  blue  to  be  met  with  ”  ;  that  both  were  for  ever  hunting  for 
“  Long  Elizas,”  a  name  in  which  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  thinks  possi  y 
a  witticism  of  Whistler’s  may  be  detected.”  Howell  rushed  m  and  met 
with  the  most  astounding  experiences  and  adventures.  A  little  shop 
in  the  Strand  was  one  of  their  favourite  haunts,  another  was  near 
London  Bridge  where  a  Japanese  print  was  given  away  with  a  pound  of 
tea.  Farmer  and  Rogers  had  an  Oriental  warehouse  m  Regent  Street. 
The  manager,  Mr.  Lazenby  Liberty,  afterwards  opened  one  on  the 
other  side  of  the  street,  and  here,  too,  Whistler  went,  introduced  to 
Mr.  Liberty  by  Rossetti.  Mr.  Liberty  rendered  him  many  a  service, 
and  visited  him  to  the  last.  Mr.  Murray  Marks  imported  blue  and  white, 
and  he  has  told  us  how  the  fever  spread  from  Whistler  and  Rossetti 
to  the  ever-anxious  collector.  Rossetti  asked  Mr.  Marks  if  he  knew 
anything  about  blue  and  white.  Mr.  Marks  said  yes ;  he  could  get 
Rossetti  a  shipload  if  he  chose.  Mr.  Marks  often  ran  over  to  Holland, 
where  blue  and  white  was  common  and  cheap,  and  he  picked  up  a  lot, 
offering  it  to  Rossetti  for  fifty  pounds.  Rossetti  happened  to  be  hard  up 
and  could  not  afford  it.  But  he  came  with  Mr.  Huth,  who  bought  as 
much  as  Rossetti  could  not  take,  and  the  rage  for  it  began  in  England, 
Sir  Henry  Thompson,  among  others,  commencing  to  collect.  The  nva  ry 
between  Whistler  and  Rossetti  lasted  for  several  years,  until  Rossetti, 
ill  and  broken,  hardly  saw  his  friends,  and  until  Mr.  Marks,  m  the  ear  y 
seventies,  bought  back  from  Whistler  and  Rossetti  all  he  had  sold  them. 

1865]  85 


James  McNeill  Whistler 


CHAPTER  XI:  CHELSEA  DAYS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
SIXTY-THREE  TO  EIGHTEEN  SIXTY-SIX  CONTINUED 

lN  Whlstler’s  correspondence  with  Fantin  between  i860  and  186c 
published  m  part  b7  M.  Benedite  in  the  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts  (1905)’ 

Ca^  b^.seen  that  he  was  outgrowing  the  influence  of  Courbet’ 
and  that  his  reaction  against  realism  was  bitter.  In  his  revolt  he  de- 
iberat ely  built  up  subjects  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  life  as  he 
new  it,  and  he  borrowed  the  motives  from  Japan. 

It  was  in  the  studio  at  No.  7  Lindsey  Row-no  huge,  gorgeous, 
tapestry-hung,  bric-a-brac  crowded  hall,  but  a  little  second  storey 
or  Enghsh  first  floor  back  room-that  the  Japanese  pictures  were 
painted.  The  method  was  a  development  of  his  earlier  work.  The 
difference  was  m  the  subjects.  He  did  not  conceal  his  “  machinery.” 
The  Lange  Leizen,  The  Gold  Screen,  The  Balcony,  the  Princesse  dn  Pays 
de  [a  P or celame  were  endeavours  to  render  a  beauty  he  had  discovered 
which  was  unknown  in  Western  life.  There  was  no  attempt  at  the 
learning  of  Tadema  or  the  “  morality  ”  of  Holman  Hunt.  Whistler’s 
models  were  not  Japanese.  The  lady  of  The  Lange  Leizen  sits  on  a 
chair  as  she  never  would  have  sat  in  the  land  from  which  her  costume 
came,  and  the  pots  and  trays  and  flowers  around  her  are  In  a  profusion 
never  seen  m  the  houses  of  T0H0  or  Canton.  In  The  Gold  Screen  pose 
and  arrangement  are  equally  inappropriate.  The  Princesse,  in  her 
trailing  robes,  is  as  little  Japanese.  When  he  left  the  studio  and  took 
his  canvas  to  the  front  of  the  house  and  painted  The  Balcony,  though 
he  clothed  the  English  models  in  Eastern  dress  and  gave  them  Eastern 
instruments  to  play  upon,  and  placed  them  before  Japanese  screens 
and  Anglo-Japanese  railings,  their  background  was  the  Thames  with 
the  chimneys  of  Battersea.  We  have  heard  of  a  Chinese  bamboo 
rack  he  used  for  these  railings,  though  some  remember  it  as  a 
studio  property  made  from  his  design.  Nothing  save  the  beauty  of 
the  detail  mattered  to  Whistler.  It  was  not  the  real  Japan  he  wanted 

to  paint,  but  his  idea  of  it,  just  as  Rembrandt  painted  his  idea  of  the 
Holy  Land. 

The  titles  he  afterwards  found  for  these  pictures  are  Purple  and 
Rose,  Caprice  m  Purple  and  Gold,  Harmony  in  Flesh  Colour  and  Green 
86  [1863 


THE  COAST  OF  BRITTANY 
ALONE  WITH  THE  TIDE 


(See  6age  66) 


OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Ross  Winans,  Esq. 


Chelsea  Days 

Rose  and  Silver.  Harmony  was  what  he  sought,  though  no  Dutchman 
surpassed  their  delicacy  of  detail,  truth  of  texture,  intricacy  of  pattern 
And  yet  we  are  conscious  in  them  of  artificial  structure  as  m  none  of 
his  other  work  ;  the  models  do  not  live  in  their  Japanese  draperies ; 
Eastern  detail  is  out  of  place  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames  ;  the  device 

is  too  obvious.  .  , 

The  Princesse  du  Pays  de  la  Porcelaine  is  the  portrait  of  Miss 

Christine  Spartali,  daughter  of  the  Greek  Consul-General  m  London, 
whom  Whistler  met  at  Ionides’,  and  to  whose  dinners  and  parties 
he  often  went.  There  were  two  daughters, .  Christine  (Countess 
Edmond  de  Cahen)  and  Marie  (Mrs.  W.  J.  Stillman),  both  beauti¬ 
ful.  Whistler  and  Rossetti  were  struck  by  their  beauty,  and 
Whistler  asked  the  younger  sister,  Christine,  to  sit  to  him.  Mrs. 
Stillman,  who  always  accompanied  her,  has  told  us  the  story  of  the 
picture.  Before  they  came  to  the  studio  Whistler  had  his  scheme 
prepared.  The  Japanese  robe  was  ready,  the  rug  and  screen  were  m 
place,  and  he  posed  her  at  once.  There  are  a  number  of  small  studies 
and  sketches  in  oil  and  pastel  that  show  he  knew  what  he  wanted. 
She  sat  twice  a  week  during  the  winter  of  1863-64.  At  first  the  wor 
went  quickly,  then  it  began  to  drag.  Whistler  often  rubbed  it  out 
just  as  she  thought  it  finished,  and  day  after  day  she  returned  to  find 
that  everything  was  to  be  done  over.  The  parents  got  tired,  but  not 
the  two  girls.  Mrs.  Stillman  remembers  that  Whistler  partly  closed 
the  shutters  so  as  to  shut  out  the  direct  light  ;  that  her  sister  stood 
at  one  end  of  the  room,  the  canvas  beside  her  ;  that  Whistler  wou  d 
look  at  the  picture  from  a  distance,  then  dash  at  it,  give  one  stro  e, 
then  dash  away  again.  As  a  rule,  they  arrived  about  half-past  ten 
or  a  quarter  to  eleven  ;  he  painted  steadily,  forgetting  everything 
else,  and  it  was  often  long  after  two  before  they  lunched.  When 
lunch  was  served,  it  was  brought  into  the  studio,  placed  on  a  ow 
table,  and  they  sat  on  stools.  There  were  no  such  lunches  anywhere. 
Mrs.  Whistler  provided  American  dishes,  strange  in  London  ;  among 
other  things,  raw  tomatoes,  a  surprise  to  the  Greek  girls,  who  had  never 
eaten  tomatoes  except  over-cooked  as  the  Greeks  liked  them,  and  canned 
apricots  and  cream,  which  they  had  never  eaten  at  all.  One  menu 
was  roast  pheasants,  followed  by  tomato  salad,  and  the  apricots  and 
cream,  usually  with  champagne.  One  cannot  wonder  that  there  were 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

occasional  deficits  in  the  bank  account  at  Lindsey  Row.  But  it  was 
not  only  the  things  to  eat  and  drink  that  made  the  hour  a  delight. 
Whistler,  silent  when  he  worked,  was  gay  at  lunch.  Perhaps  better 
than  his  charm,  Mrs.  Stillman  remembers  his  devotion  to  his  mother, 
who  was  calm  and  dignified,  with  something  of  the  sweet  peacefulness 
of  the  Friends.  After  lunch  work  was  renewed,  and  it  was  four  and 
later  before  they  were  released. 

The  sittings  went  on  until  the  sitter  fell  ill.  Whistler  was  pitiless 
with  his  models.  The  head  in  the  Princesse  gave  him  most  trouble. 
He  kept  Miss  Spartali  standing  while  he  worked  at  it,  never  letting  her 
rest ;  she  must  keep  the  entire  pose,  and  she  would  not  admit  her 
fatigue  as  long  as  she  could  help  it.  During  her  illness  a  model  stood 
for  the  gown,  and  when  she  was  getting  better  he  came  one  day  and 
made  a  pencil  drawing  of  her  head,  though  what  became  of  it  Mrs. 
Stillman  never  knew.  There  were  a  few  sittings  after  this,  and  at 
last  the  picture  was  finished.  The  two  girls  wanted  their  father  to 
buy  it,  but  Mr.  Spartali  did  not  like  it.  He  objected  to  it  as  a  portrait 
of  his  daughter.  Appreciation  of  art  was  not  among  the  virtues  of 
the  London  Greeks.  Alexander  lonides  and  his  sons  were  almost 
alone  in  preferring  a  good  thing. 

Rossetti,  glad  to  be  of  service,  tried  to  sell  the  picture.  Whistler 
agreed  to  take  a  hundred  pounds,  and  Rossetti  placed  the  canvas  in  his 
studio,  where  it  would  be  seen  by  a  collector  who  was  coming  to  look 
at  his  work.  The  collector  came,  saw  the  Princesse,  liked  it,  wanted 
it.  There  was  one  objection  :  Whistler’s  signature  in  big  letters 
across  the  canvas.  If  Whistler  would  change  the  signature  he  would 
take  the  picture.  Rossetti,  enchanted,  hurried  to  tell  Whistler. 
Whistler  was  indignant.  The  request  showed  what  manner  of  man 
the  patron  was,  one  in  whose  possession  he  did  not  care  to  have  any 
work  of  his.  However,  Rossetti  sold  the  Princesse  to  another  collector, 
who  died  shortly  afterwards,  and  then  it  was  bought  by  Frederick 
Leyland,  and  so  led  to  the  decoration  of  The  Peacock  Room. 

It  is  possible  that  this  objection  helped  Whistler  to  realise  the 
inharmonious  effect  of  a  large  signature  on  a  picture.  It  is  sure  that, 
about  this  time,  he  began  to  arrange  his  initials  somewhat  after  the 
Japanese  fashion.  They  were  first  interlaced  in  an  oblong  or  circular 
frame  like  the  signatures  of  Japanese  artists.  He  signed  his  name 
88  [1864 


Chelsea  Days 


to  the  earliest  pictures,  even  to  some  of  the  Japanese.  But  with  the 
Nocturnes  and  the  large  portraits  the  Butterfly  appeared,  made  from 
working  the  letters  J.  M.  W.  into  a  design,  which  became  more  fantastic 
until  it  evolved  into  the  Butterfly  in  silhouette,  and  continued  in  various 
forms.  In  the  Carlyle  the  Butterfly  is  enclosed  in  a  round  frame, 
like  a  cut-out  silhouette,  behind  the  figure,  and  repeats  the  prints  on 
the  wall.  In  the  Miss  Alexander  it  is  in  a  large  semicircle  and  is  far 
more  distinctly  a  butterfly.  Then  it  grew  like  a  stencil,  though  in 
no  sense  was  it  one,  as  may  be  seen  in  M.  Duret’s  portrait,  where  the 
Butterfly  is  made  simply  in  silhouette,  on  the  background,  by  a  few 
touches  of  the  rose  of  the  opera  cloak  and  the  fan.  It  was  introduced 
as  a  note  of  colour,  as  important  in  the  picture  as  any  other  detail, 
and  at  times  it  was  put  in  almost  at  the  first  painting  to  judge  the 
effect,  scraped  out  with  the  whole  thing,  put  in  again  somewhere  else, 
this  repeated  until  he  got  it  right.  We  have  seen  many  an  unfinished 
picture  with  a  wonderfully  finished  Butterfly,  because  it  was  just  where 
Whistler  wanted  it. 

The  same  development  can  be  traced  in  his  etchings,  in  which 
it  began  to  appear  as  a  bit  of  decoration.  He  originally  signed  the 
prints,  and  signed  the  plates  with  his  name  and  date  bitten  in.  But 
later  the  prints  were  signed  with  the  Butterfly,  followed  by  “  imf” 
while  the  Butterfly  alone  was  etched  on  the  copper  or  drawn  on  the 
stone.  Then  he  added  the  Butterfly  to  his  signature  to  letters  and 
his  dedication  on  prints.  And  the  Butterfly  found  its  way  to  his  invi¬ 
tation  cards,  and  at  last  his  correspondence,  public  and  private,  was 
usually  signed  with  the  Butterfly  alone.  This  was  elaborated 
ingeniously  in  The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies,  the  Butterfly  not 
only  decorating,  but  punctuating  the  paragraphs.  Rumour  says  that 
Whistler  went  so  far  as  to  sign  his  cheques  with  the  Butterfly,  and 
that  once,  having  signed  a  cheque  for  thirty-two  francs  in  this  manner, 
the  man  to  whom  it  was  paid  demanded  a  more  conventional  signature. 
Whistler,  provoked  by  the  suggestion  of  doubt,  wrote  his  name,  knowing 
the  bank  would  not  then  accept  it,  and  was  more  provoked  when  he 
found  the  rare  autograph  had  been  sold  within  a  day  for  eleven  hundred 
and  fifty  francs.  But  rumour  is  probably  wrong  :  on  all  the  formal 
letters  and  documents  we  have  seen,  his  name,  and  not  the  Butterfly, 
is  used. 

1864] 


89 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

On  the  frames  of  early  pictures  Japanese  patterns  were  painted 
in  red  or  blue  on  the  flat  gold,  and  a  Butterfly  placed  on  them,  in  relation 
to  the  picture.  He  designed  the  frames,  and  they  were  carried  out 
by  the  Greaves,  who  also  copied  his  designs  at  Streatham  Town  Hall, 
which  they  decorated  thirty  years  later.  Shortly  before  his  death,  a 
few  were  done  by  his  stepson,  E.  Godwin.  The  Saras  ate,  in  Pittsburg, 
is  an  excellent  example,  and  so  is  the  Battersea  Bridge  at  the  Tate 
Gallery.  Whistler  applied  a  similar  scheme  to  his  etchings,  water¬ 
colours,  and  pastels,  reddish  or  bluish  lines,  and  at  times  the  Butterfly, 
appearing  on  the  white  or  gold  of  their  frames.  Certain  people  want 
to  make  out  that  Whistler  got  the  idea  from  Rossetti.  It  might  as  well 
be  said  that  Rossetti  got  it  from  the  beginning  of  the  world.  .  There  is 
nothing  new  in  the  idea.  Artists  always  have  decorated  special  frames 
for  special  pictures,  and  Whistler  only  carried  on  tradition  when  he 
designed  frames  in  harmony  with  his  work  and  varied  them  according 
to  the  pictures  for  which  they  were  used.  In  after  years  he  gave 
up  almost  entirely  these  painted  frames,  and  for  his  paintings  sub¬ 
stituted  a  simple  gold  frame,  with  parallel  reeded  lines,  now  universally 
known  as  “  the  Whistler  frame.”  For  his  etchings  and  lithographs  he 
chose  a  plain  white  frame  in  two  planes.  His  canvases  and  his  panels 
were  always  of  the  same  sizes  ;  consequently  they  always  fitted  his 
frames.  And  in  his  studio,  as  in  few,  if  any  others,  frequently  there 
might  be  half  a  hundred  canvases  with  their  faces  to  the  wall,  and 
only  half  a  dozen  frames.  But  they  all  fitted,  and  Whistler  never 
showed  his  work  unframed.  This  was  the  outcome  of  Japanese 
influence,  and  of  his  knowledge  of  the  way  the  Japanese  display  their 
art.  His  deference  to  Japanese  convention  went  so  far  that  he  put 
a  branch  of  a  tree  or  a  reed  into  the  foreground  of  his  seas  and  rivers 
as  decoration,  in  early  work,  with  no  reference  to  the  picture,  sometimes 
the  only  Japanese  suggestion  in  the  design. 

The  Lange  Leizen—oj  the  Six  Marks  went  to  the  Academy  of 
1864,  with  Wapping.  The  critic  of  the  Athenasum,  to  whom  the 
Japanese  subject  seemed  “  quaint  ”  and  the  drawing  “  preposterously 
incorrect,”  could  not  deny  the  “  superb  colouring  ”  and  the  “  beautiful 
harmonies,”  nor  fail  to  see  in  Wapping  an  “  incomparable  view  of 
the  Lower  Pool  of  London.”  “  Never  before  was  that  familiar  scene 
so  triumphantly  well  painted,”  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  wrote. 

90  *■ 


THE  BLUE  WAVE 


OIL 

In  the  possession  of  A.  A.  Pope,  Esq. 


(See  page  67) 


Chelsea  Days 

Whistler  did  not  send  to  the  Salon  of  1864?  in  which  Fantin  showed 
his  now  famous  Hommage  a  Delacroix ,  wrho  had  died  in  1863.  Whistler 
was  among  the  several  admirers  whom  Fantin  painted  round  the 
portrait  of  the  dead  master.  Whistler  wanted  Fantin  to  find  a  place 
for  Rossetti,  who  would  be  proud  to  pose,  and  Fantin  was  willing,  but 
Rossetti  could  not  get  to  Paris.  There  was  also  talk  of  including 
Swinburne.  Unfortunately  for  both,  they  were  left  out  of  one  of 
the  most  celebrated  portrait  groups  of  modern  times,  now  in  the 
Moreau-Nelaton  Collection  in  the  Louvre.  The  distinguished  artists 
and  men  of  letters  were  there  nominally  out  of  respect  to  Delacroix, 
but  really  to  enable  Fantin  to  justify  his  belief  in  the  beauty  of  life  as  it 
is,  and  his  protest  against  the  classical  dictionary  and  studio  properties. 
Most  of  them  were,  or  have  since  become,  famous  :  Whistler,  Manet, 
Legros,  Bracquemond,  Fantin,  Baudelaire,  Duranty,  Champfleury, 
Cordier,  De  Balleroy.  Fantin  painted  them  in  the  costume  of  the 
time,  as  Rembrandt  and  Hals  and  Van  der  Heist,  from  whom  he  is 
said  to  have  taken  the  idea,  painted  the  regents  and  archers  of  seven¬ 
teenth-century  Holland.  Fantin’s  white  shirt  is  the  one  concession 
to  picturesqueness,  and  the  one  relief  to  the  severity  of  detail  are  the 
flowers  held  by  Whistler,  a  lithe,  erect,  youthful  figure,  with  fine,  keen 
face  and  abundant  hair.  That  the  young  American  should  be  the 
centre  of  the  group  was  a  distinction.  When  Rossetti  saw  the  picture, 
he  wrote  to  his  brother  that  it  had  “  a  great  deal  of  very  able  painting 
in  parts,  but  it  is  a  great  slovenly  scrawl  after  all,  like  the  rest  of  this 
incredible  new  school.” 

Whistler  was  already  working  out  of  the  artificial  scheme  of  the 
Japanese  pictures  into  a  phase  in  which  he  was  more  himself  than  he 
had  ever  been.  The  next  year,  1865,  he  sent  to  the  Academy  the 
most  complete,  the  most  perfect  picture  he  ever  painted,  The  Little 
White  Girl ,  which  will  always  be  recognised  as  one  of  the  few  great 
pictures  of  the  world.  It  was  dated  1864,  and  there  are  reproductions 
showing  the  date.  But  about  1900  he  painted  it  out.  He  had  been 
working  on  the  picture,  he  told  us,  and  “  did  not  see  the  use  of  those 
great  figures  sprawling  there.”  jo  was  the  model.  Now,  there  was 
no  masquerading  in  foreign  finery.  Whistler  painted  her  as  he  must 
often  have  seen  her,  in  her  simple  white  gown,  leaning  against  the 
mantel,  her  beautiful  face  reflected  in  the  mirror.  The  room  was 
1865]  91 


James  McNeill  Whistler 


not  littered  with  his  purchases  from  the  little  shops  in  the  Strand  and 
the  Rue  de  Rivoli.  Japan  is  in  the  detail  of  blue  and  white  on  the 
mantel  ;  the  girl  holds  a  Japanese  fan  ;  a  spray  of  azalea  trails  across 
her  dress.  But  these  were  part  of  Whistler’s  house,  part  of  the 
reality  he  had  created  for  himself,  and  he  made  them  no  more  beautiful 
than  the  mantel,  the  grate,  the  reflection  in  the  mirror.  There  was 
no  building  up,  he  painted  what  he  saw.  And  there  was  in  the 
handling  an  advance.  The  paint  is  thinner  on  the  canvas,  the  brush 
flows  more  freely. 

Swinburne  saw  the  picture  and  wrote  Before  the  Mirror  :  Verses 
under  a  Picture.  The  poem  was  printed  on  gold  paper,  pasted  on  the 
frame,  which  has  disappeared,  but  we  have  a  contemporary  photo¬ 
graph  showing  the  arrangement,  and  two  verses  were  inserted  in  the 
Academy  catalogue  as  sub-title.  What  Swinburne  thought  of  the 
picture  may  be  read  in  a  letter  he  wrote  to  Ruskin  in  the  summer 
of  1865  (. Library  Edition  of  the  Works  of  Ruskin ),  in  which  he  says 
that  many,  especially  Dante  Rossetti,  told  him  his  verses  were  better 
than  the  painting,  and  that  Whistler  ranked  them  far  above  it.  But 
a  closer  examination  of  the  picture  only  convinced  him  of  its  greater 
beauty,  and  he  would  stand  up  for  Whistler  against  Whistler  and 


everybody  else. 

Swinburne’s  poem  and  praise  could  not  make  ‘I he  Little  White 
Girl  at  the  Academy  better  understood  than  The  White  Girl  had  been 
in  Berners  Street.  The  rare  few  could  appreciate  its  “charm”  and 
“  exquisiteness  ”  with  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti,  who  found  that  it  was 
“  crucially  tested  by  its  proximity  to  the  flashing  white  in  Mr.  Millais 
Esther ,”  but  that  it  stood  the  test,  “retorting  delicious  harmony 
for  daring  force,  and  would  shame  any  other  contrast.’.  But  t^e 
general  opinion  was  the  other  way.  The  Athenceum  distinguished 
itself  by  regretting  that  Whistler  should  make  the  “  most  ‘  bizarre  ’ 
of  bipeds  ”  out  of  the  women  he  painted.  There  was  praise  for  two 
other  pictures.  “Subtle  beauty  of  colour”  and  “almost  mystical 
delicacy  of  tone  ”  were  discovered  in  The  Gold  Screen ,  and  colour 
such  as  painters  love  ”  in  the  Old  Battersea  Bridge ,  afterwards  Brown 
and  Silver.  This  is  the  beautiful  Battersea,  with  the  touch  of  red 
in  the  roofs  of  the  opposite  shore,  the  link  between  the  early  paintings 

on  the  river  and  the  Nocturnes  that  were  to  follow.  The  Scarf,  a 

I  louD 

92  L 


THE  MORNING  BEFORE  THE  MASSACRE  OF  ST.  BARTHOLOMEW 

WOOD-ENGRAVING  FROM  "ONCE  A  WEEK,”  VOL.  VII,  P.  210 


( See  page  71) 


Chelsea  Days 

picture  we  do  not  recognise,  attracted  less  attention,  and  Whistler, 
the  pear  before,  declared  “  one  of  the  most  original  artists  of  the  day  ” 
was  now  dismissed  as  one  who  “  might  be  called  half  a  great  artist. 

Stranger  than  this  was  the  change  in  the  attitude  of  the  French 
critics.  In  1863  they  overwhelmed  him  with  praise.  Two  years 
later  they  had  hardly  a  good  word  for  him.  Levi  Legrange,  forgotten 
as  he  merits,  wrote  the  criticism  of  the  Royal  Academy  of  1865  for  the 
Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts,  and  all  he  could  see  in  The  Little  White  Girl 
was  a  weak  repetition  of  The  White  Girl,  a  wearisome  variation  of 
the  theme  of  white  ;  really,  he  said,  it  was  quite  witty  of  the  Acade¬ 
micians,  who  could  have  refused  it  and  the  two  Japanese  pictures,  to 
give  them  good  places  and  so  deliver  them  to  judgment.  And  then 
he  praised  Horsley  and  Prinsep,  Leslie  and  Landseer.  The  Princesse 
du  Pays  de  la  Porcelaine,  in  the  Salon ,  made  no  more  favourable 
impression.  It  seemed  a  study  of  costume  to  Paul  Mantz,  who,  in 
the  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts,  decided  to  forget  it  and  remember  merely 
the  mysterious  seduction  of  The  White  Girl  of  two  years  before.  Its 
eccentricity  was  only  possible  if  taken  in  small  doses  like  the  homceo- 
pathist’s  pills,  according  to  the  incredible  Jules  Claretie,  who,  in  the 
same  article  in  V Artiste,  laughed  at  Manet’s  Olympia.  For  more 
than  twenty  years  Whistler  was  hated  in  France. 

In  this  Salon,  1865,  Fantin  showed  his  Hommage  a  la  Vente — Le 
Toast,  the  second  of  his  two  large  groups  including  Whistler’s  portrait. 
In  it  he  strayed  so  far  from  the  real  as  to  introduce  an  allegorical 
figure  of  Truth,  and  to  allow  Whistler  to  array  himself  in  a  gorgeous 
Chinese  robe.  “  Pense  d  la  robe,  superbe  d  faire,  et  donne  la  moi!” 
Whistler  urged  from  London,  and  Fantin  yielded.  “  Je  V ai  encore 
revu  dans  V atelier  en  1865,  il  me  posa  dans  un  tableau  aujourd’hui detruit, 
1  Le  Toast,’  ou'il  e'tait  costume  d’une  robe  japonaise ,”  is  Fantin’s  story 
of  it  in  the  notes  to  us,  but  Whistler,  writing  at  the  time,  speaks  of 
the  costume  as  Chinese.  He  brought  it  to  Paris  for  the  sittings. 
Fantin  was  quick  to  regret  his  concessions.  An  allegorical  figure 
could  not  be  made  real,  the  whole  thing  was  absurd.  When  he  got 
the  canvas  back  he  destroyed  it,  all  but  the  portraits  of  Whistler, 
Vollon,  and  himself.  Whistler’s  is  now  in  the  Freer  Collection. 

In  the  spring  of  1865  Whistler  was  joined  in  London  by  his  younger 
brother.  Dr.  Whistler  had  distinguished  himself  in  the  Confederate 
1865]  93 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Army  as  a  surgeon  and  by  bravery  in  the  field.  He  had  served  in 
Richmond  Hospitals  and  in  Libby  Prison  ;  he  had  been  assistant- 
surgeon  at  Drewry’s  Bluff,  and  in  1864,  when  Grant  made  his  move 
against  Richmond,  he  had  been  assigned  to  Orr’s  Rifles,  a  celebrated 
South  Carolina  regiment.  In  the  early  winter  of  1865  a  few  months’ 
furlough  was  given  him,  and  he  was  entrusted  by  the  Confederate 
Government  with  important  despatches  to  England.  Sherman’s 
advance  prevented  his  running  the  blockade  from  Charleston,  nor  was 
there  any  passing  through  the  lines  from  Wilmington  by  sea.  He 
was  obliged  to  go  North  through  Maryland,  which  meant  making 
his  way  round  Grant’s  lines.  The  difficulties  and  dangers  were  endless. 
He  had  to  get  rid  of  his  Confederate  uniform,  and  in  the  state  of  Con¬ 
federate  finance  the  most  modest  suit  of  clothes  cost  fourteen  hundred 
dollars  ;  for  a  seat  in  a  waggon  he  had  to  pay  five  hundred.  The 
trains  were  crowded  with  officials  and  soldiers,  and  he  could  get  a 
ride  in  them  only  by  stealth.  The  roads  were  abominable,  for  driving 
or  riding  or  walking.  Often  he  was  alone,  and  his  one  companion 
toward  the  North  was  a  fellow  soldier  who  had  lost  a  leg  at  Antietam 
and  was  trying  to  get  to  Philadelphia  for  repairs  to  an  artificial  one. 
Stanton’s  expedition  filled  the  country  near  the  Rappahannock  with 
snares  and  pitfalls  ;  to  cross  Chesapeake  Bay  was  to  take  one’s  life 
in  one’s  hands ;  and  north  of  the  Bay  were  the  enrolling  officers  of 
the  Union  in  search  of  conscripts.  However,  Philadelphia  was  at 
last  reached  and  a  ticket  for  New  York  bought  at  the  railroad  depot, 
where  two  sentries,  with  bayonets  fixed,  guarded  the  ticket-office, 
and  might,  for  all  Dr.  Whistler  knew,  have  seen  him  in  Libby  Prison. 
In  New  York  he  took  passage  on  the  City  of  Manchester ,  and  from  Liver¬ 
pool  he  hurried  to  London.  One  week  later  came  the  news  of  the  fall 
of  Richmond  and  the  Confederacy.  The  furlough  was  over.  There 
was  no  going  back.  It  was  probably  about  this  time,  from  the  costume 
and  the  technical  resemblance  to  Mr.  Luke  lonides’  portrait,  that 
Whistler  painted  a  head  of  Dr.  Whistler— Portrait  of  my  Brother— 
now  owned  by  Mr.  Burton  Mansfield,  though  it  should  and  might 
have  been  in  the  National  Gallery  in  Washington. 

Early  in  September  1865,  Whistler’s  mother  was  suffering  from 
trouble  with  her  eyes,  and  went  with  her  two  sons  to  Coblentz  to 
consult  an  oculist,  and  this  gave  Whistler  the  chance  to  revisit  some 


Chelsea  D  AYS 


of  the  scenes  of  the  French  Set  of  etchings.  After  that  he  spent 
a  month  or  two  at  Trouville,  where  he  was  joined  by  Courbet. 
Whistler’s  work  shows  how  far  he  had  drifted  away,  though  the  two 
were  always  friends.  In  Sea  and  Rain ,  done  at  Trouville,  there  is 
not  a  suggestion  of  Courbet.  But  we  have  seen  a  sea  by  Courbet,  owned 
by  M.  Duret,  that  Whistler  might  have  signed.  Jo  was  there  too. 
The  sea-pieces  he  had  begun,  including  Courbet  on  the  Shore,  promised 
great  things,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Luke  Ionides,  and  as  the  autumn  went 
on  the  place  was  more  quiet  for  work,  and  the  seas  and  skies  more 
wonderful.  He  did  not  get  back  to  London  until  November.  A 
few  months  later,  early  in  1866,  he  sailed  for  Valparaiso. 

This  journey  to  Valparaiso  is  the  most  unaccountable  adventure 
in  his  sometimes  unaccountable  career.  Various  reasons  for  it  have 
been  given  :  health,  a  quarrel,  restlessness,  a  whim.  But  we  tell  the 
story  as  he  told  it  to  us  : 

“  It  was  a  moment  when  many  of  the  adventurers  the  war  had 
made  of  many  Southerners  were  knocking  about  London  hunting  for 
something  to  do,  and,  I  hardly  knew  how,  but  the  something  resolved 
itself  into  an  expedition  to  go  and  help  the  Chilians  and,  I  cannot 
say  why,  the  Peruvians,  too.  Anyhow,  there  were  South  Americans 
to  be  helped  against  the  Spaniards.  Some  of  these  people  came  to 
me,  as  a  West  Point  man,  and  asked  me  to  join — and  it  was  all  done 
in  an  afternoon.  I  was  off  at  once  in  a  steamer  from  Southampton 
to  Panama.  We  crossed  the  Isthmus,  and  it  was  all  very  awful — 
earthquakes  and  things  —  and  I  vowed,  once  I  got  home,  that  nothing 
would  ever  bring  me  back  again. 

“  I  found  myself  in  Valparaiso  and  in  Santiago,  and  I  called  on  the 
President,  or  whoever  the  person  then  in  authority  was.  After  that 
came  the  bombardment.  There  was  the  beautiful  bay  with  its  curving 
shores,  the  town  of  Valparaiso  on  one  side,  on  the  other  the  long  line 
of  hills.  And  there,  just  at  the  entrance  of  the  bay,  was  the  Spanish 
fleet,  and,  in  between,  the  English  fleet,  and  the  French  fleet,  and 
the  American  fleet,  and  the  Russian  fleet,  and  all  the  other  fleets.  And 
when  the  morning  came,  with  great  circles  and  sweeps,  they  sailed 
out  into  the  open  sea,  until  the  Spanish  fleet  alone  remained.  It 
drew  up  right  in  front  of  the  town,  and  bang  went  a  shell,  and  the 
bombardment  began.  The  Chilians  didn’t  pretend  to  defend  them- 

1866]  o5 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

selves  The  people  all  got  out  of  the  way,  and  I  and  the  officials 
rode  to  the  opposite  hills,  where  we  could  look  on  The  Spaniards 
conducted  the  performance  in  the  most  gentlemanly  fashion  they 
iust  set  fire  to  a  few  of  the  houses,  and  once,  with  some  sense  of  fun, 
sent  a  shell  whizzing  over  toward  our  hills.  And  then  I  knew  what 
a  panic  was.  I  and  the  officials  turned  and  rode  as  hard  aswe  con  d, 
anyhow,  anywhere.  The  riding  was  splendid,  and  I,  as  a  West  Pol 
man  wls  iTd  of  the  procession.  By  noon  the  performance  was  over. 
The’ Spanish  fleet  sailed  again  into  position,  the  fle«”aded  m, 

sailors  landed  to  help  put  out  the  fires,  and  I  and  the  officials  rode 
back  into  Valparaiso*.  All  the  little  girls  of  the  town  had  turned 
out  waiting  for  us,  and  as  we  rode  m  called  us  Cowards  The 
Henriquettf,  the  ship  fitted  up  in  London,  did  not  appear  ti  ong 
after  and  then  we  breakfasted,  and  that  was  the  end  of  . 

Mr.  Theodore  Roussel  says  Whistler  told  him  that  on  anot  er 
occasion  he  got  on  one  of  the  defending  gunboats  and  had  his  baptism 
o  fie  amid  a  rain  of  shot  and  shell,  and  that  then,  as  we  have  said 
1  whhe  lock  appeared,  a  fact  which,  fine  as  it  is,  Whistler  omitted 

fr°  He^mlde  gooVuse  of  his  time  in  Valparaiso,  and  painted  the  three 
pictures  of  the  harbour  which  are  known  and  two  others  which  have 
disappeared.  These  he  gave  to  the  steward  or  the  purser  of  the  ship 
to  bring  home,  and  the  purser  kept  them.  Once  t  ey jwerc i  seen ml 
his  house  in  London  by  someone  who  ,! 

“  ^ZrT  ^n^artist,  said  £  "  Oh,  no,”  said  the 

asked  the  p  •  ^  a  gentleman.»  The  purser  started 

backfor  South  America,  and  took  them  with  him.  “  And  then  at, dal 
wave  met  the  ship  and  swept  off  the  purser,  the  cabin,  and  th 

WhTstkrs.”  But  we  believe 

UnTtSvoyage  back  was  vaguer  than  the  voyage  out.  From  this 
*  '  °  r  ty.„  Marnuis  de  Marmalade,  a  black  man 

!dThim^f  — us  to  Whistler,  apparently 
lyffis  coLr  and  his  swagger.  One  day  Whiter Hcked 
the  deck  to  the  top  of  the  companion  way,  and  there  »  ^  ^ 

proved  an  obstacle  for  the  momen  .  [1866 

96 


Chelsea  Days 


the  Marquis  de  Marmalade,  dropped  him  on  the  step  below  her,  and 
finished  kicking  him  downstairs.  After  that  Whistler  spent  the  rest 
of  the  journey,  not  exactly  in  irons,  but  chiefly  in  his  cabin. 

The  final  adventure  of  the  journey  was  in  London.  Whistler 
never  told  us,  but  everybody  else  says  that  when  he  got  out  of  the 
train  at  Euston,  or  Waterloo,  someone  besides  his  friends  was  waiting  : 
whether  the  captain  of  the  ship,  or  relations  of  the  Marquis  de 
Marmalade,  or  an  old  enemy  makes  little  difference.  Somebody  got 
a  thrashing,  and  this  was  the  end  to  the  most  unaccountable  episode 
in  Whistler’s  life. 


CHAPTER  XII :  CHELSEA  DAYS  CONTINUED.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  SIXTY-SIX  TO  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-TWO. 

It  was  late  in  1866  when  Whistler  returned  from  Valparaiso.  Soon 
after  he  moved  into  No.  2*  at  the  east  end  of  Lindsey  Row,  now 
No.  96  Cheyne  Walk.  It  was  a  three-storey  house  with  an  attic,  part 
of  the  old  palace  remodelled,  and,  like  No.  7,  it  looked  on  the  river. 
Here  he  lived  longer  than  anywhere  else  ;  here  he  painted  the 
Nocturnes  and  the  great  portraits ;  here  he  gave  his  Sunday  break¬ 
fasts.  He  had  a  house-warming  on  February  5  (1867),  when  the  two 
Rossettis  dined  with  him,  and  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  wrote  in  his  diary  : 

“  There  are  some  fine  old  fixtures,  such  as  doors,  fireplaces,  and 
Whistler  has  got  up  the  rooms  with  many  delightful  Japanesisms. 
Saw  for  the  first  time  his  pagoda  cabinet.  He  has  two  or  three  sea- 
pieces  new  to  me  :  one,  on  which  he  particularly  lays  stress,  larger 
than  the  others,  a  very  grey  unbroken  sea  [probably  Sea  and  Rain ], 
also  a  clever  vivacious  portrait  of  himself  begun.” 

No  doubt  this  is  the  portrait  in  round  hat,  with  paint-brushes 
in  his  hand. 

Mr.  Greaves  says  that  the  dining-room  at  No.  2  was  blue,  with  a 
darker  blue  dado  and  doors,  and  purple  Japanese  fans  tacked  on  the 
walls  and  ceiling  ;  other  friends  remember  “  a  fluttering  of  purple 
fans.”  One  evening  Miss  Chapman  was  dining,  and  Whistler,  wanting 
her  to  see  the  view  up  the  river  from  the  other  end  of  the  bridge,  told 
*  He  never  lived  at  No.  3,  as  Walter  Greaves  has  wrongly  stated. 

1867]  G 


97 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

her  he  would  show  her  something  “  as  lovely  as  a  fan  !  ”  The  studio, 
again  the  second-storey  back  room,  was  grey,  with  black  dado  and 
doors ;  from  the  Mother  and  the  Carlyle  one  knows  that  Japanese 
hangings  and  his  prints  were  on  the  walls ;  and  in  it  was  the  big  screen 
he  painted  for  Leyland  but  kept  for  himself,  with  Battersea  Bridge 
across  the  top,  Chelsea  Church  beyond,  and  a  great  gold  moon  in  the 
deep  blue  sky.  The  stairs  were  covered  with  Dutch  metal.  He  slept 
in  a  huge  Chinese  bed.  Beautiful  silver  was  on  his  table.  He  ate  off 
blue  and  white.  “  Suppose  one  of  these  plates  was  smashed  ?  ”  Miss 
Chapman  asked  Whistler  once.  “  Why,  then,  you  know,”  he  said, 
“  we  might  as  well  all  take  hands  and  go  throw  ourselves  into  the 
Thames  !  ” 

1  he  beauty  of  the  decoration,  as  at  No.  7,  was  its  simplicity. 
Rossetti’s  house  was  a  museum,  an  antiquity  shop,  in  comparison. 
The  simplicity  seemed  the  more  bewildering  because  it  was  the  growth, 
not  of  weeks,  but  of  years.  The  drawing-room  was  not  painted  until 
the  day  of  Whistler’s  first  dinner-party.  In  the  morning  he  sent  for 
the  brothers  Greaves  to  help  him.  “  It  will  never  be  dry  in  time  !  ” 
they  feared.  “  What  matter  ?  ”  said  Whistler,  “  it  will  be  beautiful !  ” 
“  We  three  worked  like  mad,”  is  Mr.  Walter  Greaves’  account,  and 
by  evening  the  walls  were  flushed  with  flesh-colour,  pale  yellow,  and 
white  spread  over  doors  and  woodwork,  and  we  have  heard  gowns 
and  coats  too  were  touched  with  flesh-colour  and  yellow  before  the 
evening  was  at  an  end.  One  Sunday  morning  Whistler,  after  he  had 
taken  his  mother  to  Chelsea  Church,  as  he  always  did,  again  sent  for 
his  pupils  and  painted  a  great  ship  with  spreading  sails  in  each  of  the 
two  panels  at  the  end  of  the  hall  ;  the  ships  are  said  to  be  still  on  the 
wall  covered  up.  His  mother  was  not  so  pleased  when,  on  her  return, 
she  saw  the  blue  and  white  harmony,  for  she  would  have  had  him 
put  away  his  brushes  on  Sunday  as  once  she  put  away  his  toys.  But 
she  had  many  other  trials  and  revelations  :  coming  into  the  studio 
one  day,  she  found  the  parlour -maid  posing  for  “  the  all-over  !  ”  The 
ships  were  in  place  long  before  the  dado  of  hall  and  stairway  was 
covered  with  gold  and  sprinkled  with  rose  and  white  chrysanthemum 
petals.  Miss  Alexander  (Mrs.  Spring-Rice)  saw  Whistler  at  work 
upon  it  when  she  came  to  sit,  and  he  had  lived  six  years  at  No.  2. 
Whistler’s  houses  were  never  completely  decorated  and  furnished  ; 
98  [1867 


Chelsea  Days 


they  had  a  look  as  if  he  had  just  moved  in  or  was  just  moving  out. 
But  what  was  decorated  was  beautiful. 

Whistler  sent  to  the  exhibitions  of  1867,  in  London  and  Paris. 
He  began  the  year  by  showing  at  the  French  Gallery,  in  January, 
one  of  the  paintings  of  Valparaiso  :  Crepuscule  in  Flesh  Colour  and  Green. 
It  is  the  long  picture  of  Valparaiso  Harbour  in  the  early  evening, 
ships  moored  with  partly  furled  sails ;  the  first  painting  of  twilight, 
and  one  of  the  first  paintings  carried  out  in  the  liquid  manner  of  the 
Nocturnes.  There  were  critics  to  call  it  a  poem  “  in  colour,”  though 
Whistler  had  not  taught  them  to  look  for  the  “  painter’s  poetry  ” 
in  his  work.  The  upright  Valparaiso,  a  perfect  Nocturne,  was  done 
at  the  same  time,  1866,  but  not  exhibited  until  later,  and  there  is  an 
unfinished  version  of  the  same  subject. 

In  the  Salon  of  1867,  where  it  had  been  rejected  eight  years  before, 
At  the  Piano  was  accepted,  and  also  The  Thames  in  Ice — Sur  la  Tamise  : 
VHiver.  It  was  the  year  of  the  French  Universal  Exhibition.  M.  Duret 
writes  that  probably  Mr.  George  Lucas  spoke  of  Whistler  to  Mr.  Avery, 
the  United  States  Art  Commissioner  at  the  Exhibition.  The  result 
was  that  a  number  of  his  etchings  and  four  pictures  were  hung  The 
White  Girl ,  W  apping  or  On  the  Thames,  Old  Battersea  Bridge,  Twilight 
on  the  Ocean,  the  title  then  of  the  Crepuscule  in  Flesh  Colour  and  Green. 
The  Hudson  River  School  dominated  American  art,  and  Whistler’s 
paintings  had  to  compete  with  the  big  machines  of  Church  and  Bierstadt. 
Tuckerman,  in  his  Book  oj  the  Artists,  quotes  an  unnamed  American 
critic  who,  in  1867,  found  that  Whistler’s  etchings  differed  from  his 
paintings  in  meriting  the  attention  they  attracted,  but  he  could  see 
in  the  Marines  only  “  blurred,  foggy  imperfections,”  and  in  The  White 
Girl  only  “  a  powerful  female  with  red  hair,  and  a  vacant  stare  in  her 
soulless  eyes.  She  is  standing  on  a  wolfskin  hearthrug,  for  what  reason  is 
unrecorded.  The  picture  evidently  means  vastly  more  than  it  expresses 
— albeit  expressing  too  much.  Notwithstanding  an  obvious  want  of 
purpose,  there  is  some  boldness  in  the  handling,  and  singularity  in  the 
glare  of  the  colours  which  cannot  fail  to  divert  the  eye  and  weary  it.” 

Americans  were  not  treated  with  respect  by  the  Hanging  Committee. 
Their  work  was  put  in  corridors  and  dark  corners,  and  Whistler  suffered. 
French  critics,  enthusiastic  over  his  pictures  four  years  earlier,  were 
now  no  more  appreciative  than  the  American.  Paul  Mantz  was 
1867]  99 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

distressed  by  the  “  strange  white  apparition  ”  upon  which,  at  the 
Salon  des  Refuses ,  he  had  lavished  his  praise.  Burty  thought  that 
either  time  exaggerated  the  defects  of  the  prints  or  else  critical  eyes 
had  lost  their  indulgence,  for  the  etchings  were  photographic  and  had 
a  dryness  and  minuteness  due  to  the  early  training  of  “  Mr.  Whystler.” 
Both  wrote  in  the  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts.  Mr.  Avery,  however,  had 
the  sense  to  appreciate  the  etchings,  and  it  was  probably  at  this  time  he 
commenced  his  great  collection,  now  in  the  New  York  Public  Library. 

Whistler  and  his  brother,  the  Doctor,  went  to  Paris  in  April. 
There  they  heard  of  the  sudden  death  of  Traer,  Seymour  Haden’s 
assistant,  and  a  member  of  the  British  Jury,  on  which  Haden  also 
served.  Whistler  liked  Traer,  and  the  circumstances  of  his  death  and 
burial  led  to  a  misunderstanding  between  the  two  brothers  and  the 
brother-in-law.  The  three  met.  The  dispute  was  short  and  sharp  ; 
the  result,  a  summons  for  the  brothers  to  appear  before  a  juge  de 
paix.  Whistler  had  been  in  the  same  court  a  few  days  earlier.  A 
workman  had  dropped  plaster  on  him  as  he  passed  through  a  narrow 
street  in  the  Latin  Quarter,  and  he  had  met  the  offence  in  the  only 
way  possible  according  to  his  code.  Whistler  sent  for  the  American 
Minister,  and  the  magistrate  apologised.  When  he  appeared  again, 
“  Gonnu  /  ”  said  the  judge,  and  there  was  no  apology,  but  a  fine.  Haden 
said  he  fell  through  a  plate-glass  window,  Whistler  that  he  knocked 
him  through.  Haden  maintained  that  both  brothers  were  against 
him,  Whistler  that  he  demolished  Haden  single-handed. 

It  happened  just  when  London  gossip  got  hold  of  the  story  of  the 
Marquis  de  Marmalade  and  Whistler’s  return  from  Valparaiso.  Dr. 
Moncure  Conway,  in  his  Reminiscences ,  recalls  a  dinner  given  by  Dante 
Rossetti  to  W.  J.  Stillman,  in  the  winter  of  1867,  when  “Whistler 
(a  Confederate)  related  with  satisfaction  his  fisticuff  with  a  Yankee 
[really  the  black  Marquis]  on  shipboard,  William  Rossetti  remarked  : 
‘  I  must  say,  Whistler,  that  your  conduct  was  scandalous.’  (Stillman 
and  myself  were  silent.)  Dante  Gabriel  promptly  wrote  : 

‘  There's  a  combative  Artist  named  Whistler 
W ho  is,  like  his  own  hog-hairs,  a  bristler  : 

A  tube  of  white  lead  ] 

And  a  punch  on  the  head 
Offer  varied  attractions  to  Whistler ” 


IOO 


[1867 


DRY-POINT.  G.  92 


STUDY  IN  CHALK 

In  the  possession  of  B.  B.  MacGeorge,  Esq. 


(See  page  72 ) 


WEARY 


Chelsea  Days 


It  was  at  this  time,  too,  that  Whistler  had  a  difference  with  Legros, 
to  which  no  reference  would  be  made  had  it  not  also  become  a  legend. 
Friends  tried  to  reconcile  them  and  succeeded  badly.  The  rumours 
spread,  and  Whistler  began  to  be  talked  of  as  quarrelsome.  Haden, 
when  he  got  back  to  London,  resigned  his  post  as  Honorary  Surgeon 
to  South  Kensington  Museum,  printed  a  pamphlet  to  explain,  and 
threatened  to  resign  from  the  Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club,  of  which 
both  he  and  Whistler  were  members,  unless  Whistler  was  expelled. 
The  Burlington  Club  wrote  to  Whistler  that  if  he  did  not  resign  they 
would  have  to  consider  his  expulsion.  Both  the  Rossettis  considered 
this  very  improper,  and  when  Whistler’s  expulsion  was  voted  by 
eighteen  against  eight,  William  Michael  Rossetti  handed  in  his  resig¬ 
nation  at  once  and  Dante  Rossetti  sent  in  his  two  or  three  days 
later. 

Whistler’s  manner  of  resenting  injury  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
the  way  he  was  later  treated  in  England.  He  explained  his  code  to 
a  friend :  “  If  a  man  gives  you  the  lie  to  your  face,  why,  naturally  you 
hit  him.”  People  who  did  not  know  him  became  afraid  of  him,  and 
this  fear  grew  and  was  the  reason  of  the  reputation  that  clung  to  him 
for  years  and  clings  to  his  memory. 

Before  Whistler’s  pictures  went  to  the  Royal  Academy,  Mr.  W.  M. 
Rossetti  saw  them  :  “  March  31  (1867).  To  see  Whistler’s  pictures 
for  the  R.A.  To  the  R.A.  he  means  to  send  Symphony  in  White , 
No.  III.  (heretofore  named  The  Two  Little  White  Girls),  and  a 
Thames  picture  ;  possibly  also  one  of  the  four  sea  pictures ;  and  I 
rather  recommend  him  to  select  the  largest  of  these,  which  he  regards 
with  predilection,  of  a  grey  sea  and  a  very  grey  sky.” 

Battersea  was  the  Thames  picture  ;  Sea  and  Rain,  painted  while 
Whistler  and  Courbet  worked  together  at  Trouville,  the  sea  picture  ; 
and  The  Two  Little  White  Girls  was  sent  under  its  new  name,  Symphony 
in  White,  No.  III. — the  first  time  one  of  his  pictures  was  catalogued 
as  a  Symphony,  his  first  use  of  a  title  borrowed  from  musical  terms 
to  explain  his  pictorial  intention. 

Baudelaire  had  given  the  hint  in  prose,  Gautier  had  written 
Symphonies  in  verse,  Murger’s  Bohemians  had  composed  a  Symphonie 
sur  V influence  de  bleu  dans  les  arts.  In  1863  Paul  Mantz  had  described 
The  White  Girl  as  a  “  Symphony  in  White.”  There  can  be  no  doubt 
1867]  IOI 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

that  from  these  things  Whistler  got  the  idea.  It  was  the  third  variation 
of  white  upon  white.  The  difference  was  in  the  thin  liquid  paint. 
The  critic  of  the  Athenceum  had  the  sense  to  thank  the  “  painter  who 
endeavours  bp  anp  means  to  show  people  what  he  reallp  aims  at.” 
But  he  was  almost  alone.  Burtp,  in  noticing  the  Academp  of  1867 
for  the  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts,  thought  the  Academp’s  hanging 
Whistler  at  all  a  fine  piece  of  ironp,  and  regretted  the  painter’s  failure 
to  fulfil  his  earlp  promise. 

Hamerton,  in  the  Saturday  Review,  June  1,  1867,  represented  the 
feeling  of  the  insulted,  solemn,  bewildered  Islanders  :  “  There  are 

manp  daintp  varieties  of  tint,  but  it  is  not  preciselp  a  spmphonp 
in  white.  One  ladp  has  a  pellowish  dress  and  brown  hair  and  a  bit 
of  blue  ribbon  ;  the  other  has  a  red  fan,  and  there  are  flowers  and 
green  leaves.  There  is  a  girl  in  white  on  a  white  sofa,  but  even 
this  girl  has  reddish  hair ;  and,  of  course,  there  is  the  flesh-colour  of 
the  complexions.” 

Whistler  answered  in  a  letter,  not  printed,  however,  until  it  appeared 
in  the  Art  Journal  (April  1887)  :  “  Bon  Dieu  !  did  this  wise  person 
expect  white  hair  and  chalked  faces  ?  And  does  he  then,  in  his 
astounding  consequence,  believe  that  a  spmphonp  in  F  contains  no  other 
note,  but  shall  be  a  continued  repetition  of  F  F  F  ?  .  .  .  Fool !  ” 

Whistler  knew  that  to  carrp  on  tradition  was  the  artist’s  business. 
Rembrandt,  Hals,  Velasquez,  Claude,  Canaletto,  Guardi,  Hogarth, 
Courbet,  the  Japanese,  in  turn  influenced  him.  Some  see,  at  this 
period,  the  influence  of  Albert  Moore,  which,  if  it  existed,  was  as 
ephemeral  and  superficial  as  Rossetti’s.  It  could  be  argued  with  more 
truth  that  Whistler  influenced  Albert  Moore,  who,  in  at  least  two 
pictures,  Harmony  of  Orange  and  Pale  Yellow,  Variation  of  Blue  and 
Gold ,  borrowed  Whistler’s  titles.  Whistler  also  knew  that  the  end  of 
all  studp  of  the  masters  should  be  to  evolve  something  personal,  and, 
in  the  endeavour  to  develop  his  personalitp,  he  was  passing  through 
experiments  and  working  through  difficulties.  All  this  is  in  his  letters 
to  Fantin.  A  fourth  Symphony  in  White  was  started  :  the  T hr ee 
Figures.  In  the  Two  Girls,  he  wrote  to  Fantin,  the  harmonp  was 
repeated  in  line  and  in  colour,  and  he  sent  a  sketch  of  it.  He  exulted 
in  the  rhpthm  of  line  ;  he  despaired  because  he  could  not  get  it  right. 
The  picture  was  scraped  out  and  rubbed  down,  then  repainted,  and 
102  [1867 


Chelsea  Days 


with  each  fresh  difficulty  he  deplored  the  mistakes  of  his  early  training. 
Mr.  Eddy  writes  that  Whistler  used  to  call  Ingres  the  “  bourgeois 
Greek.”  This  we  never  heard  him  say,  nor  is  there  any  such  want  of 
respect  in  his  letters  to  Fantin,  for  there  he  expresses  regret  that  he 
“  did  not  study  under  Ingres,”  whose  work  he  may  have  liked  moderately, 
“  but  from  whom  I  would  have  learned  to  draw  ”  :  which  was  absurd 
modesty,  for  he  drew  better  than  Ingres,  if  not  so  academically,  as  his 
etchings  prove.  He  never  execrated  Courbet  and  denounced  ce 
damne  Realisme  so  violently  as  in  the  autumn  of  1867.  This  was  not 
quite  fair,  for  Realism  had  brought  Courbet  to  the  conclusions  which 
Whistler,  unaided,  was  now  reaching  :  that  knowledge  of  art,  ancient 
and  modern,  has  no  end  save  the  development  of  individuality,  and 
that  the  artist  is  to  go  to  Nature  for  inspiration,  but  to  take  from  her 
only  life  and  beauty.  Whistler,  in  his  impatience,  recalled  Realism 
as  practised  by  the  young  enthusiasts  gathered  about  Courbet,  and 
denied  that  Courbet  influenced  him.  “  Ca  ne  pouvaitpas etre  autrement, 
parce  que  je  suis  tres  personnel ,  et  quej’ai  ete  riche  en  qualites  qu'il  n'avait 
pas  et  qui  me  suffisaient .”  The  cry  of  Nature  had  appealed  to  his  vanity, 
Whistler  said,  and  so  he  had  mocked  at  tradition,  and  in  his  early 
work  had  copied  Nature  with  the  self-confidence  of  “  Vecolier  debauched 
If  at  one  moment  he  boasted  that  the  race  was  for  Fantin  and  himself, 
because  in  art,  as  at  the  Derby,  “  c’est  le  pur  sang  qui  gagne ,”  the  next 
he  chafed  over  the  time  he  had  lost  before  discovering  that  art  is  not 
the  exact  reproduction  of  Nature,  but  its  interpretation,  and  that 
the  artist  must  seek  his  motives  in  Nature  and  weave  from  them  a 
pattern  on  his  canvas.  He  praised  Fantin’s  flowers  because  he  saw 
in  them  this  pattern.  Passages  in  the  letters  are  the  basis  of  The  Ten 
o'Clock.  His  definition  of  the  relation  of  drawing  to  colour—"  son 
amant ,  mais  aussi  son  maitre  ” — suggests  the  later  definition  of  the 
relation  of  the  artist  to  Nature  :  "  her  son  in  that  he  loves  her,  her 
master  in  that  he  knows  her.”  Whistler  used  the  same  ideas  in  his 
talk,  in  his  letters,  in  his  pamphlets,  perfecting  it. 

It  was  the  period  of  transition.  Those  who  saw  him  know  how  hard 
he  worked,  and  how  he  was  discouraged.  For  a  while  he  lived  with 
Mr.  Frederick  Jameson.  He  never  spoke  to  us  of  this  interval  away 
from  Lindsey  Row.  Mr.  Jameson  says  it  was  1868  or  1869;  most 
likely  the  winter  of  1867-68,  when  Mrs.  Whistler  went  home  to  visit 
1868]  103 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

her  family,  left  poor  by  the  war.  Mr.  Jameson  lived  at  62  Great  Russell 
Street,  Bloomsbury,  in  rooms  that  had  first  been  Burne-Jones’,  and 
afterwards  Poynter’s.  Mr.  Jameson  writes  us  : 

The  seven  months  Whistler  and  I  lived  together  were  unpro¬ 
ductive  and  uneventful.  He  was  working  at  some  Japanese  pictures, 
one  of  which,  quite  unfinished,  was  hung  at  the  London  Memorial 
Exhibition.  I  have  seen  large  portions  of  it  apparently  finished,  but 
they  never  satisfied  him,  and  were  shaved  down  to  the  bed-rock  merci¬ 
lessly.  The  man,  as  I  knew  him,  was  so  different  from  the  descriptions 
and  presentations  I  have  read  of  him  that  I  would  like  to  speak  of  the 
other  side  of  his  character.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  more 
unfailingly  courteous,  considerate,  and  delightful  companion  than 
Whistler,  as  I  found  him.  We  lived  in  great  intimacy,  and  the  studio 
was  always  open  to  me,  whatever  he  was  doing.  We  had  all  our  meals 
together,  except  when  elsewhere  engaged,  and  I  never  heard  a  complaint 
of  anything  in  our  simple  household  arrangements  from  him.  Any 
little  failure  was  treated  as  a  joke.  His  courtesy  to  servants  and  models 
was  particularly  charming ;  indeed,  I  can’t  conceive  of  his  quarrelling 
with  anyone  without  real  provocation.  His  talk  about  his  own  work 
revealed  a  very  different  man  to  me  from  the  self-satisfied  man  he  is 
usually  believed  to  have  been.  He  knew  his  powers,  of  course,  but 
he  was  painfully  aware  of  his  defects— in  drawing,  for  instance.  I 
can  remember  with  verbal  accuracy  some  very  striking  talks  we  had 
on  the  subject.  To  my  judgment  he  was  the  most  absolutely  truthful 
man  about  himself  that  I  ever  met.  I  never  knew  him  to  hide  an  opinion 
or  a  thought,  nor  to  try  to  excuse  an  action.” 

The  picture  Mr.  Jameson  refers  to  was  called  Three  Figures,  Pink 
and  Grey*  in  the  London  Memorial  Exhibition.  It  alone  was  carried 
out  of  the  Six  or  Eight  Schemes  or  Projects  in  which  Whistler  was  trying 
to  combine  Japanese  and  classical  motives,  expressing  a  beauty  of  form 
and  design  that  haunted  him,  and  was  perhaps  best  realised  in  some 
of  the  pastel  studies.  He  never  ceased  to  make  these  studies.  There 
are  pastels,  chalk  drawings,  and  etchings  in  which  the  separate  figures 
of  the  Projects  may  be  found,  studies  for  the  series ;  one  was  worked 
out  as  a  fan,  another  like  a  cameo.  The  second  version  of  the  Three 
Figures,  enlarged  from  a  smaller  design,  Whistler  explained  to  Mr. 

*  See  Chapter  XXXV. 


PORTRAIT  OF  WHISTLER  BY  HIMSELF 
CHALK  DRAWING 

In  ihe  possession  of  Thomas  Way,  E;q. 


(See  bage  78) 


Chelsea  Days 

Alan  S.  Cole,  was  an  arrangement  he  wanted  to  paint,  and  he  then 
drew,  with  a  sweep  of  the  brush,  the  back  of  the  stooping  figure  to 
show  what  he  meant.  W.  M.  Rossetti  most  likely  referred  to  it  when 
he  wrote  in  his  diary  for  July  28,  1867  : 

“Whistler  is  doing  on  a  largish  scale  for  Leyland  the  subject  of 
women  with  flowers,  and  has  made  coloured  sketches  of  four  or  five 
other  subjects  of  the  like  class,  very  promising  in  point  of  conception 
of  colour  and  arrangement.” 

The  Projects  were  his  first  scheme  of  decoration  for  Leyland.  The 
canvases  are  about  the  same  size.  They  are  painted  with  liquid 
colour,  the  canvas  often  showing  through.  The  handling  in  all  save 
the  Venus ,  shown  in  the  Paris  Memorial  Exhibition  and  worked  on 
in  his  later  years,  is  more  direct  than  anything  he  ever  did.  They 
have  the  same  relation  to  his  pictures  as  the  sketches  of  Rubens  and 
Tiepolo  to  their  decorations.  The  V enus  is  a  single  figure,  the  rest 
are  groups  arranged  against  a  balustrade,  round  a  vase  of  flowers,  or 
on  the  sands  by  the  sea.  Their  floating  draperies  give  the  scheme  of 
colour.  The  experience  gained  in  making  these  designs  was  of  immense 
use  in  the  Nocturnes,  for  the  technique  is  the  same,  and  the  same 
treatment  is  in  the  pile  of  drapery  of  the  Miss  Alexander.  He  did 
not  give  up  until  much  later  this  method  of  painting.  The  complete 
series  had  never  been  seen  publicly  before  the  Paris  Memorial 
Exhibition.  They  belong  to  Mr.  Freer. 

During  all  his  life,  till  he  was  given  a  commission  for  a  panel  in 
the  Boston  Public  Library,  Whistler  hoped  to  have  the  chance  to 
execute  a  great  decorative  scheme.  When  the  Central  Gallery  at  South 
Kensington  was  being  decorated,  Sir  Henry  Cole  asked  him  to  design 
one  of  the  mosaic  panels.  For  this,  in  the  winter  of  1873?  he  made 
a  pastel,  a  richly  robed  figure  carrying  a  Japanese  umbrella.  The 
scheme  was  in  blue,  purple,  and  gold,  and  a  pastel  study  for  it  was  shown 
at  the  London  Memorial  Exhibition  as  Design  jor  a  Mosaic.  He  spoke 
of  it  at  the  time  as  A  he  Gold  Girl.  The  design  was  to  be  enlarged 
and  put  on  canvas  by  the  brothers  Greaves.  Sir  Henry  Cole  offered 
him  a  studio  in  the  Museum  when  he  was  ready  to  begin  his  cartoon. 
“  You  know,  Sir  Henry  Cole  always  liked  me,  and  I  told  him  he  ought 
to  provide  me  with  a  fine  studio — it  would  be  an  honour  to  me — 
and  to  the  Museum  !  ”  But  models  broke  down,  the  fog  settled  over 
1873]  105 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

London,  he  wanted  to  get  through  his  Academy  picture,  he  was  called 
to  Paris.  Whether  the  cartoon  was  finished,  or  whether  it  was  found 
out  of  keeping  with  the  machines  of  Royal  Academicians  in  the  Central 
Gallery,  is  not  known.  But  the  decoration  was  never  done. 

Hamerton’s  Etching  and  Etchers  was  published  in  i860.  Shortly 
before,  he  wrote  to  Whistler  :  “  I  wonder  whether  you  would  object 

to  lend  me  a  set  of  proofs  for  a  few  weeks.  As  the  book  is  already 
advanced  I  should  be  glad  of  an  early  reply.  My  opinion  of  your 
work  is,  on  the  whole,  so  favourable  that  your  reputation  could  only 
gam  by  your  affording  me  the  opportunity  of  speaking  of  your  work 
at  length.” 

Whistler  took  no  notice  of  the  request  at  the  time,  but  printed  it 
years  afterwards  as  the  Unanswered  Letter  in  7 he  Gentle  Art.  Hamerton, 
unused  to  being  ignored  by  artists,  expressed  his  astonishment  in  his 
book  :  “I  have  been  told  that,  if  application  is  made  by  letter  to 
Mr.  Whistler  for  a  set  of  his  etchings,  he  may,  perhaps,  if  he  chooses  to 
answer  the  letter,  do  the  applicant  the  favour  to  let  him  have  a  copy 
for  about  the  price  of  a  good  horse.” 

His  praise  was  never  without  qualification.  He  saw  in  Whistler 
a  strikingly  imperfect  artist,  self-concentrated,  without  range  or  poetical 
feeling,  whose  work  was  rarely  affecting,  and  most  of  these  remarks 
were  reprinteci  by  Whistler  with  the  Unanswered  Letter  as  Incon¬ 
sequences.  In  the  end  Whistler  let  Hamerton  have  a  plate,  Billingsgate, 
in  its  third  state,  published  in  the  Portfolio  (January  1878),  and,  two 
years  after,  in  the  third  edition  of  Etching  and  Etchers  (1880). 

Hamerton,  patronising  in  his  estimate  of  Whistler’s  work,  exaggerated 
in  his  comments  on  Whistler’s  prices.  Success  never  induced  Whistler 
deliberately  to  increase  the  price  of  his  etchings  by  making  them  rare, 
in  the  fashion  of  the  young  men  of  to-day.  It  was  different  with  his 
dry-points,  the  number  of  impressions  being  limited.  Mr.  Percy 
Thomas  says  that  Whistler  would  throw  them  on  the  floor  at  Lindsey 
Row  and  consider  them.  “  I  think  for  this  we  must  say  five  guineas, 
and  for  this  six,  and  for  this  I  must  say— ten  !  ”  But  Mr.  Thomas 
remembers  only  one  attempt  to  create  a  price.  He  had  been  sent 
from  Bond  Street  to  Lindsey  Row  with  prints  for  Whistler  to  sign, 
and  the  next  day  he  returned  for  them.  Whistler  and  Mrs.  Whistler 
were  sitting  together,  silent  and  sad,  and  Whistler  hurried  from  the 
i°6  [18G8 


Chelsea  Days 


studio  without  a .  word.  "  But  what  is  it  ?  What  has  happened  ? 
Mr.  Thomas  asked,  and  Mrs.  Whistler  explained  that  Whistler  had 
thrown  the  prints  into  the  fire,  thinking  it  would  be  a  good  thing 
to  make  them  rare,  and  had  been  miserable  since.  If  he  destroyed 
work  he  was  sure  to  regret  it.  “  f,ai  tant  pleure  apres,  as  he  wrote 
to  Fantin.  Another  incident  remembered  by  Mr.  Thomas  would 
have  altered  Hamerton’s  idea  of  Whistler’s  business  methods.  Edmund 
Thomas  had  gone  to  the  studio  and  offered  a  sum  for  all  the  prints 
in  it.  Whistler  accepted  the  offer,  Mr.  Thomas  drew  a  cheque,  and 
carried  off  the  prints.  A  couple  of  hours  later  a  messenger  appeared 
with  a  bundle  of  proofs.  Whistler  had  come  upon  them,  and  sent  word 
that,  according  to  the  bargain,  they  belonged  to  Mr.  Thomas. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  sixties,  or  beginning  of  the  seventies, 
Mr.  Murray  Marks  tried  to  start  a  Fine  Art  Company  with  Alexander 
lonides,  Rossetti,  Burne-Jones,  and  Morris  to  deal  in  pictures,  prints, 
blue  and  white,  and  decorative  work.  They  were  to  sell  Watts’, 
Burne-Jones’,  and  Rossetti’s  pictures,  and  Whistler’s  etchings,  possibly 
his  paintings.  lonides,  who  was  to  advance  two  or  three  thousand 
pounds,  bought  the  sixteen  plates  by  Whistler  now  known  as  the 
Thames  Set,  and  the  prints  from  them.  The  sum  paid  was  three 
hundred  pounds.  A  secretary  was  engaged  for  the  company,  but 
that  was  the  end  of  it.  The  plates  became  the  absolute  property 
of  lonides.  He  had  a  hundred  sets  printed  ;  he  gave  one  set  to  each 
of  his  children  ;  the  others  were  taken  over  by  Messrs.  Ellis  and  Green, 
and  published  in  1871  as  Sixteen  Etchings  of  Scenes  on  the  Thames, 
price  twelve  guineas.  Later,  the  plates  came  into  the  possession  of 
the  Fine  Art  Society,  who  sold  the  prints  unsigned  as  a  set  in  a  portfolio 
for  fourteen  guineas,  or,  singly,  from  half  a  guinea  to  two  guineas  and 
a  half.  Finally  Mr.  Keppel,  of  New  York,  bought  the  coppers,  had 
the  steel  facing  removed,  for  they  had  been  steeled,  Goulding  printed 
a  number  from  each,  and  some  good  prints  were  obtained.  The  plates 
were  then  destroyed. 

Official  recognition  of  Whistler,  the  etcher,  continued.  The  British 
Museum  bought  his  prints  and  only  stopped  when,  a  few  years  ago, 
it  was  discovered  that  the  work  of  living  artists  could  not  be  purchased 
for  the  Print  Room.  The  ignorance  of  this  regulation  was  of  value 
to  the  Museum,  where  there  are  now  one  hundred  and  nine  etchings. 
1871]  io7 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

At  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  South  Kensington,  there  are 
sixty-one  prints,  besides  several  issued  in  various  publications  and  a 
second  Thames  Set  in  the  lonides  Collection.  For  several  years 
the  late  Sir  Richard  R.  Holmes  purchased  prints  for  Windsor  Castle 
Library,  about  one  hundred  and  forty  in  all.  He  wrote  us : 

“  It  is  difficult  to  say  when,  or  how,  I  first  began  collecting  Whistler’s 
etchings.  I  had  a  few,  and  then  I  met  several  while  I  was  looking 
after  other  things  at  Thibaudeau’s,  and,  gradually,  I  found  I  had  so 
many  that  I  thought  it  best  to  make  the  collection  as  complete  as  I 
could,  and  got  a  number  from  Whistler  himself.” 

Often  Sir  Richard  went  to  the  studio  ;  often  Whistler  sent  to 
Windsor  prints  he  thought  should  be  there.  The  Venetian  series 
was  bought.  Finally,  after  Sir  Richard’s  retirement,  they  were  sold 
to  improve  the  collection  ”  at  what  was  supposed  the  height  of 
the  Whistler  boom,”  and  after  they  had  been  praised  in  the  Memorial 
Exhibitions  of  London  and  Paris.  As  King  Edward  VII.  on  his  visit 
to  the  London  Memorial  Exhibition  expressed  surprise  at  the  few  he 
looked  at,  it  is  certain  that  his  Majesty  was  unaware  that  the  collection 
was  at  Windsor.  Even  the  portfolio,  presented  by  Whistler  to  Queen 
Victoria  with  his  autograph  letter  asking  her  acceptance,  was  first 
lost,  and,  when  found,  sold  in  1906,  the  few  prints  in  Princess  Victoria’s 
apartments  only  being  kept.  The  disposal  of  the  etchings  was  so  badly 
managed  that  the  Jubilee  series  brought  more,  when  re-sold  a  few 
weeks  after  the  King  parted  with  them,  than  his  Majesty  got  for  the 
whole  collection.  During  Whistler’s  lifetime  important  collections  of 
his  etchings  were  acquired  also  by  the  Museums  of  Dresden,  Venice, 
and  Melbourne,  and  the  New  York  Public  Library. 

The  success  of  Whistler’s  plates  during  the  following  years  is  a 
contrast  to  the  fate  of  his  pictures,  which  for  a  long  period  were 
neglected.  He  had  nothing  in  the  Academy  of  1868.  Mr.  Jameson 
has  told  us  of  his  despair  because  the  Three  Girls  was  not  finished  in 
time,  and  of  their  wandering  together  about  town,  in  and  out  of  galleries 
and  museums,  until  at  last,  before  Velasquez  in  the  National  Gallery, 
Whistler  took  heart  again.  And  he  delighted  in  the  admiration  of 
Swinburne  in  Notes  on  Some  Pictures  oj  1868.  The  paintings  which 
had  not  been  submitted  “  to  the  loose  and  slippery  judgment  of  an 
academy,”  but  had  been  seen  by  Swinburne  in  the  studio  and  seemed 
108  [1868 


HARMONY  IN  FLESH-COLOUR  AND  GREEN 
THE  BALCONY 


OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Fieer,  Esq. 


( Seepage  86) 


Chelsea  Days 

to  him  "  to  have  grown  as  a  flower  grows,”  were  evidently  the  Projects. 
A  special  quality  of  Whistler’s  genius,  Swinburne  said,  is  ”  a  freshness 
and  fullness  of  the  loveliest  life  of  things,  with  a  high,  clear  power 
upon  them  which  seems  to  educe  a  picture  as  the  sun  does  a  blossom 

or  a  fruit.” 

In  1869  the  Academy  moved  to  Burlington  House,  and  there  in 
1870  Whistler  showed  The  Balcony.  From  1867  to  1870  he  did  not 
show  in  the  Salon.  Whistler,  like  Rossetti,  was  never  without  his 
public,  though  many  years  passed  before  he  received  Rossetti  s  rewards. 
He  could  rely  on  the  Ionides,  Leathart,  Frederick  Leyland,  Huth, 
Alexander,  Rawlinson,  Anderson  Rose,  Jameson,  Chapman,  Potter. 
But,  unlike  Rossetti,  he  wanted  to  show  his  work  and  receive  for  it 
rewards.  As  far  back  as  1864  Fantin  wrote  to  Edwin  Edwards  of 
Whistler’s  perseverance,  his  determination  to  get  into  the  Salon ,  a  phase 
of  his  character  Fantin  said  he  had  not  known.  Whistler’s  absence 
from  exhibitions  was  not  his  fault.  It  was  his  hatred  of  rejection  and 
fear  of  being  badly  hung  that  drove  him  from  them. 

The  tyranny  of  the  Academy  was  no  new  thing.  The  opening 
of  the  exhibition  was  every  year  the  occasion  of  scandal  and  of  protest 
against  an  institution  that  rejected  and  still  rejects  distinguished 
artists.  One  gallery  after  another  took  up  the  outsiders.  After  the 
Berners  Street  Gallery  came  the  Dudley,  which,  in  1867,  added  to  its 
show  of  water-colours  a  show  of  oils ;  in  1868,  the  Corinthian  Gallery 
in  Argyll  Street  ;  in  1869,  the  Select  Supplementary  Exhibition  in 
Bond  Street— these  last  two  poor  affairs  more  apt  to  justify  than  expose 
the  Academy.  Dealers  came  to  the  rescue  :  the  French  Gallery  in 
Pall  Mall,  and  the  Society  of  French  Artists,  where  Durand-Ruel 
brought  his  collection  in  1870,  and,  under  the  management  of  M.  Charles 
Deschamps,  gave  exhibitions  until  18 77-  the  French  Gallery  and 

with  M.  Deschamps  Whistler  showed  many  times.  He  contributed 
often  to  the  Dudley  from  1871,  and  there  the  next  year,  1872,  exhibited 
for  the  first  time  a  Nocturne.  His  use  of  titles  to  explain  his  intention 
was  now  so  well  established  that  in  1872,  when  The  White  Girl  and 
the  Princesse  were  in  the  International  Exhibition  at  South  Kensington, 
they  were  catalogued  as  Symphony  in  White,  No.  /.,  and  Variations  in 
Flesh  Colour,  Blue,  and  Grey,  later  changed  to  Grey  and  Rose;  and  he 
supplied  the  explanation,  printed  in  the  “  Programme  of  Reception.” 
1869-72]]  I09 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

They  were  “  the  complete  results  of  harmonies  obtained  by  em¬ 
ploying  the  infinite  tones  and  variations  of  a  limited  number  of 
colours.” 

His  portrait  of  his  mother  was  sent  to  the  Academy  of  1872- — 
Arrangement  in  Grey  and  Black  :  Portrait  oj  the  Painter’s  Mother. 
It  was  refused.  Madox  Brown  wrote  to  George  Rae  :  “I  hear 
that  Whistler  has  had  the  portrait  of  his  mother  turned  out.  If  so, 
it  is  a  shame,  because  I  saw  the  picture,  and  know  it  to  be  good  and 
beautiful,  though,  I  suppose,  not  to  the  taste  of  Messrs.  Ansdell 
and  Dobson.” 

Sir  William  Boxall  threatened  to  resign  from  the  Council  if  the 
portrait  was  not  hung,  for  he  would  not  have  it  said  that  a  committee 
to  which  he  belonged  had  rejected  it.  Similar  threats  have  been  heard 
in  recent  years,  and  the  rejected  work  has  stayed  out,  and  the  Acade¬ 
micians  have  stayed  in.  Boxall  would  not  yield,  and  the  picture  was 
hung,  not  well,  yet  not  out  of  sight  ;  groups,  it  is  said,  were  always 
gathered  before  it  to  laugh.  Still,  there  it  was,  the  last  picture  by 
Whistler  at  the  Academy,  where  nothing  of  his  was  again  seen,  save 
one  etching  in  1879  :  Putney  Bridge,  published  by  the  Fine  Art  Society 
and  probably  sent  by  them. 

The  whole  affair  made  talk.  But  1872  is  interesting,  above  all, 
as  the  year  when  Whistler  first  exhibited  a  portrait  as  an  Arrangement 
and  an  impression  of  night  as  a  Nocturne. 

As  it  was  the  last  year  he  showed  a  picture  in  the  Academy,  it  may 
be  as  well  to  complete  here  our  account  of  his  relations  with  this 
institution.  It  is  said  that  he  put  his  name  down,  or  allowed  it  to 
be  put  down,  for  election.  He  was  never  elected.  Other  Americans 
were,  for  the  Royal  Academy  is  so  broad  in  its  constitution  that  an 
artist  need  not  be  an  Englishman,  need  not  be  resident  in  Great  Britain, 
need  not  have  shown  on  its  walls  to  become  a  member  or  honorary 
member.  But  though  during  all  these  years  and  until  the  day  of  his 
death  Whistler  would  have  accepted  election,  we  have  never  heard 
that  he  obtained  a  single  vote.  George  Bought  on,  an  American 
artist  and  a  member  of  the  Royal  Academy,  explained  the  Academic 
attitude  when  he  said  that  if  Whistler  had  “  behaved  himself  ”  he 
would  have  been  President.  Even  this  concession  Boughton  qualified  : 
“  Now,  if  anyone  knowing  Whistler  and  me  should  go  about  thinking 
no  [1872 


Chelsea  Days 


me  serious  in  imagining  that  he  would  make  a  good  President— even 
of  an  East  End  boxing  club— such  persons  live  in  dense  error.” 

The  only  comment  to  make  is  that  Boughton  did  not  understand 
Whistler,  and,  in  company  with  the  Academy,  had  not  the  least  artistic 
sense,  or  even  business  appreciation  in  this  matter. 

Whistler  would  have  accepted  election  for  one  reason  only— because 
of  the  official  rank  it  would  have  given  him  in  England.  Other  Americans 
hustled  to  get  it ;  he  expected  it  as  an  honour  which  he  deserved.  He 
knew  himself  to  be  more  distinguished  than  any  member  of  the  Royal 
Academy.  Though  recognition  was  withheld  during  his  lifetime, 
several  Academicians  attempted  to  secure  for  the  Academy  a  posthumous 
glory  by  endeavouring  to  get  together  an  exhibition  of  his  works  the 
winter  after  his  death.  It  would,  indeed,  have  been  irony  if  the 
Academy  had,  in  return  for  its  neglect  of  Whistler,  got  the  kudos  and 
cash  as  their  reward.  Another  instance  of  what  Americans  call 
“  graft  ”  is  in  the  absence  from  the  Chantrey  Collection  of  a  picture 
by  Whistler,  and  the  presence  of  the  work  of  the  Academicians  who 
administer  the  Fund.  The  Trustees,  although  they  have  bought  then- 
own  work,  paying  as  much  as  one  thousand  pounds  to  Sir  Edward  J. 
Poynter,  three  thousand  to  Sir  Hubert  von  Herkomer,  three  thousand 
and  fifty  to  Lord  Leighton,  two  thousand  to  Sir  J.  E.  Millais,  Bart., 
over  two  thousand  to  Mr.  Frank  Dicksee,  two  thousand  to  Sir  W.  Q. 
Orchardson,  two  thousand  to  Vicat  Cole,  who  are  or  were  members  of 
the  Council  of  the  Academy,  never  even  offered  the  sixty  pounds  for 
which  they  might  have  bought  Whistler’s  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Gold : 
Old  Battersea  Bridge ,  since  purchased  for  two  thousand  by  public 
subscription  and  given  to  the  Tate  Gallery.  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
Whistler,  disgusted  with  such  conduct,  especially  on  the  part  of  his 
fellow  countrymen,  members  of  the  Academy,  and  others,  who  might 
have  elected  him,  left  as  his  only  written  request  relative  to  his  pictures 
we  have  seen,  the  wish  that  none  should  ever  find  a  place  in  any 
English  Gallery  ?  Death  did  not  spare  him  Academical  jealousy. 
Not  content  with  ignoring  him  during  his  lifetime,  officially  insulting 
his  memory  after  his  death,  Sir  Edward  Poynter,  then  Director,  when 
he  hung  Old  Battersea  Bridge  in  the  National  Gallery,  affixed  to 
it,  or  allowed  to  be  affixed,  a  label  on  which  Whistler’s  name  was 
misspelt,  Whistler  described  as  of  the  British  School,  the  title  of  the 
1872]  in 


James  .McNeill  Whistler 

picture  incorrectly  given,  while  Whistler’s  decorated  frame  was  hung 
ups.de  down.  The  picture  has  since,  by  the  irony  of  fate,  been  placed 
m  the  Gallery  of  Modern  British  Art  !  ^ 


CHAPTER  XIII :  NOCTURNES.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
SEVENTY-TWO  TO  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-EIGHT 


Whistler  was  the  first  to  paint  the  night.  The  blue  mystery  that 
veils  the  world  from  dusk  to  dawn  is  in  the  colour-prints  of  Hiroshige 
But  the  wood-block  cannot  give  the  depth  of  darkness,  the  method 
makes  a  convention  of  colour.  Hiroshige  saw  and  felt  the  beauty  and 
invented  a  scheme  by  which  to  suggest  it  on  the  block,  but  he  could  not 
render  the  night  as  Whistler  rendered  it  on  canvas. 

Though  colour-prints  suggested  the  Nocturnes,  they  were  only 
the  suggestion.  Whistler  never  copied  Japanese  technique.  But 
Japanese  composition  impressed  him-the  arrangement,  the  pattern 
and  at  times  the  detail.  The  high  or  low  horizon,  the  line  of  a  bridge 
°JCr  a  ?Vi’r’  t^e  sPraP  of  foliage  in  the  foreground,  the  golden  curve 
of  a  falling  rocket,  the  placing  of  a  figure  on  the  shore,  the  signature  in 
the  oblong  panel,  show  how  much  he  learned.  He  abandoned  the 
Japanese  convention  in  a  few  years,  but  he  never  gave  up,  he  developed 
rather,  what  he  always  spoke  of  as  the  Japanese  method  of  drawing.* 
He  translated  Japanese ^ art— translate  is  the  word- though  he  said 
that  he  carried  on  tradition.”  His  idea  was  not  to  go  to  the  Japanese 
as  greater  than  himself,  but  to  learn  what  he  could  from  them  and 
make  another  work  of  art ;  a  work  founded  on  tradition  no  less  than 
theirs,  and  yet  as  western  as  theirs  was  eastern. 

Night,  beautiful  everywhere  from  Valparaiso  to  Venice,  is  never 
more  beautiful  than  in  London.  First  he  painted  the  Thames  in  the 
grey  day,  but,  as  time  went  on,  he  painted  it  in  the  blue  night.  Only 
those  who  have  lived  by  the  river  for  years,  as  we  have,  can  realise  the 
truth  as  well  as  the  beauty  of  the  Nocturnes.  He  still,  like  Courbet, 

“  loved  things  for  what  they  were,”  but  he  chose  the  exquisite,  the 
poetic.  The  foolishness  of  Nature  never  appealed  to  him.  But 
Courbet  was  no  more  a  realist  than  Whistler  if  realism  means  truth. 


*  See  Chapter  XXII. 


1 1 2 


[1872-78 


THE  LANGE  LEIZEN  OF  THE  SIX  MARKS 
PURPLE  AND  ROSE 
OIL 

In  the  possession  of  J.  G.  Johnson,  Esq. 


{See  page  86) 


Nocturnes 


The  long  nights  on  the  river  were  followed  by  long  days  in  th# 
studio.  In  the  end  he  gave  up  making  notes.  It  was  impossible  for 
him  to  work  in  colour  at  night,  and  he  had  to  trust  to  his  memory. 
In  his  portraits  and  his  pictures  done  by  day  he  had  a  model.  But 
looking  at  colour  and  arrangement  by  night,  and  retaining  the  memory 
until  the  next  morning  simply  means  a  longer  interval  between 
observation  and  execution.  And,  carrying  on  the  tradition  of  the 
Japanese  and  the  method  of  drawing  from  memory  advocated  by 
Lecoq  de  Boisbaudron,  and  practised  by  many  of  his  most  distinguished 
contemporaries  in  France,  Whistler  developed  his  powers  of  observation. 
Even  then,  as  he  said,  to  retain  the  memory  of  the  subject  required 
as  hard  training  as  a  football  player  goes  through.  His  method  was  to 
go  out  at  night,  and  all  his  pupils  or  followers  agree  in  this,  stand  before 
his  subject  and  look  at  it,  then  turn  his  back  on  it  and  repeat  to  whoever 
was  with  him  the  arrangement,  the  scheme  of  colour,  and  as  much  of 
the  detail  as  he  wanted.  The  listener  corrected  errors  when  they 
occurred,  and,  after  Whistler  had  looked  long  enough,  he  went  to  bed 
with  nothing  in  his  head  but  his  subject.  The  next  morning,  as  he 
told  his  apprentice,  Mrs.  Clifford  Addams,  if  he  could  see  upon  the 
untouched  canvas  the  completed  picture,  he  painted  it  ;  if  not,  he  passed 
another  night  in  looking  at  the  subject.  However,  it  was  not  two 
nights’  observation  alone,  but  the  knowledge  of  a  lifetime  that  enabled 
him  to  paint  the  Nocturnes.  This  power  to  see  a  finished  picture 
on  a  bare  canvas  is  possessed  by  all  great  artists.  But  the  greater  the 
artist  the  more  he  sees  and  the  better  he  presents  it. 

Whistler  said  “  Nature  put  him  out,”  because  the  arrangement  as 
he  found  it  put  him  out  ;  Nature  is  never  right.  Few  painters  have 
understood  the  art  of  selection,  and  here  Hiroshige  and  the  other 
Japanese  were  of  use.  He  went  to  Nature  for  the  motive,  to  the  Japanese 
for  the  design.  This  was  why  he  said  Nature  was  at  once  his  master 
and  his  servant.  The  Nocturnes  looked  so  simple  to  a  public  trained 
by  Ruskin  to  believe  that  signs  of  labour  are  the  chief  merits  in  a 
picture,  that  they  seemed  unfinished— just  knocked  off.  Yet  his  letters 
to  Fantin  are  full  of  regret  for  his  slowness  :  “  Je  suis  si  lent.  .  .  . 
Les  choses  ne  vont  -pas  vite.  .  .  .  Je  produis  feu  parceque  f  'efface  tout  l  ” 
No  one  knew  the  hard  work  that  produced  the  simplicity.  In  no  other 
paintings  was  Whistler  as  successful  in  following  his  own  precepts  and 
1872-78]  H  I 13 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

concealing  traces  of  toil.  One  touch,  less  and  nothing  would  be  left ; 
one  touch  more  and  the  spell  would  be  broken,  and  night  stipped  of 
mystery.  To  give  the  silhouette  of  bridge  or  building  against  the 
sky  ;  the  lines  of  light  trailing  through  the  water  or  leading  to  infinite 
distance  ;  the  boats,  ghosts  fading  into  the  ghostly  river  ;  the  fall  of 
rockets  through  shadowy  air— to  give  all  these  things,  and  yet  to  keep 
them  shrouded  in  the  transparency  of  darkness  was  the  problem  he 
set  himself  in  the  Nocturnes  painted  in  the  little  second-storey  back 
room  at  Chelsea.  It  was  the  night  he  saw  and  studied  at  Cremorne, 
darker,  more  mysterious  for  the  sudden  flare  of  the  fireworks,  for  the 
glow  iri  which  little  figures  danced,  for  the  hint  of  draperies  passing 
in  and  out  of  the  shadows —night  that  toned  the  tawdry  gardens  and 
their  vulgar  crowd  into  beauty. 

Now  everyone  can  see,  and  “  night  is  like  a  Whistler,”  for  Whistler 
compelled  people  to  look  at  his  pictures,  until  it  has  become  impossible 
to  look  at  night  without  seeing  the  Nocturnes.  He  painted  the  im¬ 
pression  that  night  made  on  him,  and  the  great  artist,  like  the  great 
author,  moves  people  until  they  think  they  see  things  as  he  does.  Even 
in  that  ever-quoted  passage  from  The  Ten  o’Clock ,  he  does  not  pretend 
to  see  Nature  as  people  see  her  or  as  Nature  seems  to  be  ;  his  concern 
is  with  the  impression  that  Nature  at  night  made  on  him,  and  in  this 
he  was  an  impressionist. 

The  brothers  Greaves  bought  his  materials  and  prepared  his  canvas 
and  colours.  “  I  know  all  these  things  because  I  passed  days  and  weeks 
in  the  place  standing  by  him,”  Walter  Greaves  has  said  to  us.  Whistler 
remade  his  brushes,  heating  them  over  a  candle,  melting  the  glue  and 
pushing  the  hair  into  the  shape  he  wanted.  Greaves  says  that  the 
colours  were  mixed  with  linseed  oil  and  turpentine.  Whistler  told  us 
that  he  used  a  medium  composed  of  copal,  mastic,  and  turpentine. 
The  colours  were  arranged  upon  a  palette,  a  large  oblong  board  some 
two  feet  by  three,  with  the  butterfly  inlaid  in  one  corner  and  sunken 
boxes  for  brushes  and  tubes  round  the  edges.  This  palette  was  laid 
upon  a  table.  He  had  at  various  periods  two  or  three  ;  and  at  least 
one  stand,  with  many  tiny  drawers,  upon  which  the  palette  fitted. 
At  the  top  of  the  palette  the  pure  colours  were  placed,  though,  more 
frequently,  there  were  no  pure  colours  at  all.  Large  quantities  of 
different  tones  of  the  prevailing  colour  in  the  picture  to  be  painted 
i 14  [1872-78 


Nocturnes 

were  mixed,  and  so  much  of  the  medium  was  used  that  he  called  it 
“  sauce.”  Greaves  says  that  the  Nocturnes  were  mostly  painted  on 
a  very  absorbent  canvas,  sometimes  on  panels,  sometimes  on  bare  brown 
holland,  sized.  For  the  blue  Nocturnes,  the  canvas  was  covered  with 
a  red  ground,  or  the  panel  was  of  mahogany,  which  the  pupils  got  from 
their  boat-building  yard,  the  red  forcing  up  the  blues  laid  on  it.  Others 
were  done  on  a  warm  black,  and  for  the  fireworks  there  was  a  lead  ground. 
Or,  if  the  night  was  grey,  then,  Whistler  said,  “  the  sky  is  grey,  and  the 
water  is  grey,  and,  therefore,  the  canvas  must  be  grey.”  Only  once 
within  Greaves’  memory  was  the  ground  white.  The  ground  for 
his  Nocturnes,  like  the  paper  for  his  pastels,  was  chosen  of  the  prevailing 
tone  of  the  picture  he  wanted  to  paint  or  of  a  colour  which  would  give 
him  that  tone,  not  to  save  work,  but  to  avoid  fatiguing  the  canvas. 

When  Whistler  had  arranged  his  colour-scheme  on  the  palette, 
the  canvas,  which  the  pupils  prepared,  was  stood  on  an  easel,  but  so 
much  “  sauce  ”  was  used  that  frequently  it  had  to  be  thrown,  flat  on  the 
floor  to  keep  the  whole  thing  from  running  off.  He  washed  the  liquid 
colour  on,  lightening  and  darkening  the  tones  as  he  worked.  In  the 
Nocturnes,  the  sky  and  water  are  rendered  with  great  sweeps  of  the 
brush  of  exactly  the  right  tone.  How  many  times  he  made  and  wiped 
out  that  sweeping  tone  is  another  matter.  When  it  was  right,  there  it 
stayed.  With  his  life’s  knowledge  of  both  the  effects  he  wanted  to  paint 
and  the  way  to  paint  them,  at  times,  as  he  admits  himself,  he  completed 
a  Nocturne  in  a  day.  In  some  he  got  his  effect  at  once,  in  others  it 
came  only  after  endless  failures.  If  the  tones  were  right,  he  took  them 
off  his  palette  and  kept  them  until  the  next  day,  in  saucers,  or  gallipots, 
under  water,  so  that  he  might  carry  on  his  work  in  the  same  way  with 
the  same  tones.  Mrs.  Anna  Lea  Merritt  tells  us  that  when  she  lived 
in  Cheyne  Walk,  she  remembers  “  seeing  the  Nocturnes  set  out  along 
the  garden  wall  to  bake  in  the  sun.”  Some  were  laid  aside  to  dry  slowly 
in  the  studio,  some  were  put  in  the  garden  or  on  the  roof  to  dry  quickly. 
Sometimes  they  dried  out  like  body-colour  in  the  most  unexpected 
fashion.  It  was  a  time  of  tireless  research.  He  had  to  invent  every¬ 
thing,  though  he  profited  by  the  technical  training  he  had  gained  in 
painting  the  Six  Projects. 

Whistler  first  called  his  paintings  of  night  Moonlights.  Nocturne 
was  Mr.  Leyland’s  suggestion,  as  we  have  heard  from  Mrs.  Leyland, 

1872-78]  US 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

^son-in-law,  Val  Prinsep,  stated  in  the  Art  Journal  (August  1 802) 
that  Whistler  wrote  to  Leyland  : 

I  can  t  thank  you  too  much  for  the  name  Nocturne  as  the  title 

or  my  Moonlights,  You  have  no  idea  what  an  irritation  it  proves 
to  the  critics,  and  consequent  pleasure  to  me  ;  besides  it  is  really  so 
charming,  and  does  so  poetically  say  all  I  want  to  say  and  no  more  than 

WLWiietiler  t0  mystlf7’  °r  because  he  saw  something  new  in  his  pictures 
Whistler  repeatedly  changed  their  titles,  especially  of  the  Nocturnes 
and  repeatedly  exhibited  different  pictures  with  the  same  title.  It  is 
true,  as  Mr.  Bernhard  Sickert  writes  :  “  such  alterations  made  by  the 
artist  himself  stultify  the  whole  idea,  and  prove  that  the  analogy  with 
music  does  not  hold  consistently.  Any  musician  would  tell  us  that 
we  could  not  change  the  title  of  Symphony  in  C  minor  to  Sonata  in 
(j  major  without  making  it  an  absurdity.” 

That  he  should  either  not  have  realised  this  fact,  or  else  have 
disregarded  it  deliberately,  is  the  more  extraordinary  because  every 
Nocturne  represents  a  different  effect  rendered  in  a  different  fashion 
Although  he  altered  his  titles,  nothing  offended  him  more  than  when 
others  tampered  with  them  or  stole  them. 

The  painting  of  the  Nocturnes  continued  for  many  years,  and  in 
many  places.  But  the  greater  number  were  painted  when  he  lived  at 
Lindsey  Row,  most  from  his  windows,  and  few  took  him  beyond 
Battersea  and  Westminster.  He  resented  it  when  people  suggested 
literary  titles  for  them,  and  he  put  his  resentment  into  words  that 

.  “f6  i1St07  ”  in  Th e  Red  RaS:  one  of  the  most  interesting  documents 
m  1  he  Gentle  Art ,  published  originally  in  the  World  (May  22  1878)  • 

“  My  picture  of  a  Harmony  in  Grey  and  Gold  is  an  illustration 
of  my  meaning- a  snow  scene  with  a  single  black  figure  and  a  lighted 
tavern.  I  care  nothing  for  the  past,  present  or  future  of  the  black 
gure,  placed  there  because  the  black  was  wanted  at  that  spot.  All 
that  I  know  is  that  my  combination  of  grey  and  gold  is  the  basis  of 
the  picture.  Now  this  is  precisely  what  my  friends  cannot  grasp 
rhey  say,  ‘Why  not  call  it  “  Trotty  Veck,”  and  sell  it  for  a  round 
harmony  of  golden  guineas  ?  ’  ” 

.  k°rd  Redesdale  told  us  that  it  was  he  who  suggested  this  title 
gaily.  Whistler  assured  another  of  his  friends  that  he  had  only  to  write 

116  [1878 


LA  PRINCESSE  DU  PAYS  DE  LA  PORCELA1NE 
ROSE  AND  SILVER 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 


(See  page  87) 


Portraits 


“  Father,  dear  Father,  come  home  with  me  now  ”  on  the  painting  for 
it  to  become  the  “  picture  of  the  year.”  Subject,  sentiment,  meaning 
were  for  him  in  the  night  itself — the  night  in  its  loveliness  and  mystery. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  he  carried  tradition  further  and  made 
greater  advance  in  the  Nocturnes  than  in  any  of  his  paintings.  The 
subjects  are  the  simplest — factories,  bridges,  boats  and  barges,  shops, 
gardens— but  in  his  hands  they  became  things  of  beauty  that  will  live 
for  ever.  The  Nocturnes  are  not  all  moonlights  ;  we  remember  only 
a  few  in  which  the  moon  appears,  some  are  illumined  only  by  flickering 
lamplight.  They  are  not  invariably  pictures  of  night,  but  at  times  of 
dawn  or  of  twilight.  Nocturne,  however,  is  the  name  Whistler  chose 
for  all,  and  by  it  they  will  always  be  known. 


CHAPTER  XIV:  PORTRAITS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
SEVENTY-ONE  TO  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-FOUR. 

While  Whistler  was  painting  the  Nocturnes,  he  was  working  on  the 
large  portraits.  The  Mother  was  the  first.  We  cannot  say  when  he 
began  it.  He  wrote  of  it  to  Fantin,  promising  to  send  a  photograph, 
in  1871,  but  it  was  not  shown  until  1872.  How  many  were  the  sittings, 
how  often  the  work  was  scraped  down  or  wiped  out,  no  one  will  ever 
know.  We  have  some  interesting  technical  details  from  Walter  Greaves. 
The  portrait  was  painted  on  the  back  of  a  canvas,  as  J.  saw  when  it  was 
sent  to  the  London  Memorial  Exhibition,  as  Otto  Bacher  saw  when 
the  picture  was  in  Whistler’s  studio  in  1883  : 

“  I  noticed  that  it  was  painted  on  the  back  of  a  canvas,  on  the  face 
of  which  was  the  portrait  of  a  child.  My  remark,  ‘  Why,  you  have 
painted  your  mother  on  the  back  of  a  canvas  !  ’  received  simply  the 
reply  :  ‘  Isn’t  that  a  good  surface  ?  ’  ” 

There  was  scarcely  any  paint  used,  Greaves  says,  the  canvas  being 
simply  rubbed  over  to  get  the  dress,  and,  as  at  first  the  dado  had  been 
painted  across  the  canvas,  it  shows  through  the  skirt.  Harper  Penning¬ 
ton  says  that  the  canvas,  being  absorbent,  was  stained  all  through  from 
the  painting  on  the  face.  But  this  does  not  alter  Greaves’  statement. 
That  wonderful  handkerchief  in  the  tired  old  hands,  Greaves  describes 
as  “  nothing  but  a  bit  of  white  and  oil.” 

1871]  1 17 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

What  Whistler  wanted  was  to  place  upon  canvas  a  beautiful  arrange¬ 
ment,  a  beautiful  pattern,  of  colour  and  line.  No  painter  since  Hals 
and  Velasquez  thought  so  much  of  placing  his  figure  on  the  canvas 
inside  the  frame.  No  painter  since  Velasquez  understood  so  well  the 
value  of  restrained  line  and  restrained  colour.  The  long,  vertical 
and  horizontal  lines  in  the  background,  the  footstool,  the  matting, 
the  brushwork  on  the  wall,  add  quietness  to  the  portrait,  tranquillity 
to  the  pose  that  could  be  kept  for  ever  ;  a  contrast  to  the  frenzied 
squirms  preferred  bp  his  predecessors,  contemporaries  and  successors. 
Hamerton  thought  he  must  have  found  this  pose,  or  the  hint  for  it,  in 
the  Agrippina  at  the  Capitol  in  Rome,  or  in  Canova’s  statue  of  Napo¬ 
leon’s  mother  at  Chatsworth.  If  Whistler  found  it  anywhere,  except 
in  his  own  studio,  it  could  only  have  been  at  Haarlem,  where  Franz 
Hals’  old  ladies  sit  together  with  the  same  serenity  and  are  painted 
in  much  the  same  scheme.  Whistler  had  been  to  Holland  and  seen 
the  beautiful  group,  and  he  was  haunted  by  it. 

Whistler  wrote  to  Fantin  that  if  the  Mother  marked  any  progress, 
it  was  in  the  science  of  colour.  What  he  wanted  people  to  see  in  it, 
he  explained  in  The  Red  Rag  : 

“Take  the  picture  of  my  mother,  exhibited  at  the  Royal  Academy 
as  an  Arrangement  in  Grey  and  Black.  Now  that  is  what  it  is.  To  me 
it  is  interesting  as  a  picture  of  my  mother  ;  but  what  can  or  ought 
the  public  to  care  about  the  identity  of  the  portrait  ?  ” 

And  yet  Swinburne  was  not  alone  in  realising  its  “  intense  pathos  of 
significance  and  tender  depth  of  expression,”  while  to  a  few  Whistler 
gave  a  glimpse  of  the  other  side,  as  to  Mr.  Harper  Pennington  : 

“  Did  I  ever  tell  you  of  an  occasion  when  Whistler  let  me  see  him 
with  the  paint  off — with  his  brave  mask  down  ?  Once  standing  by  me 
in  his  studio — Tite  Street— we  were  looking  at  the  Mother.  I  said  some 
string  of  words  about  the  beauty  of  the  face  and  figure,  and  for  some 
moments  Jimmy  looked  and  looked,  but  he  said  nothing.  His  hand 
was  playing  with  that  tuft  upon  his  nether  lip.  It  was,  perhaps,  two 
minutes  before  he  spoke.  ‘Yes,’  very  slowly,  and  very  softly— ‘Yes, 
one  does  like  to  make  one’s  mummy  just  as  nice  as  possible  !  ’  ” 

Whistler  told  us  that  Madame  Venturi,  a  friend  of  Carlyle’s,  deter¬ 
mined  that  he  too  should  be  painted. 

“  I  used  to  go  often  to  Madame  Venturi’s  —  I  met  Mazzini  there,  and 
118  [1872 


Portraits 


Mazzini  was  most  charming— and  Madame  Venturi  often  visited  me, 
and  one  da y  she  brought  Carlyle.  The  Mother  was  there,  and  Carlyle 
saw  it,  and  seemed  to  feel  in  it  a  certain  fitness  of  things,  as  Madame 
Venturi  meant  he  should — he  liked  the  simplicity  of  it,  the  old  lady 
sitting  with  her  hands  in  her  lap— and  he  said  he  would  be  painted.  And 
he  came  one  morning  soon,  and  he  sat  down,  and  1  had  the  canvas 
ready  and  the  brushes  and  palette,  and  Carlyle  said  :  ‘  And  now,  mon, 
fire  away  !  ’  That  wasn’t  my  idea  how  work  should  be  done.  Carlyle 
realised  it,  for  he  added  :  ‘  If  ye’re  fighting  battles  or  painting  pictures, 
the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  fire  away  !  ’  One  day  he  told  me  of  others 
who  had  painted  his  portrait.  ‘  There  was  Mr.  Watts,  a  mon  of  note. 
And  I  went  to  his  studio,  and  there  was  much  meestification,  and 
screens  were  drawn  round  the  easel,  and  curtains  were  drawn,  and  I 
was  not  allowed  to  see  anything.  And  then,  at  last,  the  screens  were 
put  aside  and  there  I  was.  And  I  looked.  And  Mr.  Watts,  a  great 
mon,  he  said  to  me,  “How  do  you  like  it  ?  ”  And  then  I  turned  to 
Mr.  Watts,  and  I  said,  “  Mon,  I  would  have  ye  know  I  am  in  the  hobit 
of  wurin’  clean  lunen  !  ”  ’  ” 

Carlyle  told  people  that  he  sat  there  talking  and  talking,  and  that 
Whistler  went  on  working  and  working  and  paid  no  attention  to  him 
whatever.  Whistler  found  Carlyle  a  delightful  person,  and  Carlyle 
found  him  a  workman.  And  it  has  been  said  that  they  used  to  take 
walks  together,  but  of  this  we  have  no  record. 

Before  the  portrait  was  finished,  Whistler  had  begun  to  paint  Miss 
Alexander,  and  another  story  is  of  a  meeting  at  the  door  between  the 
old  man  coming  out  and  the  little  girl  going  in.  “  Who  is  that  ?  ” 
he  asked  the  maid.  “  Miss  Alexander,  who  is  sitting  to  Mr.  Whistler.” 
Carlyle  shook  his  head.  “  Puir  lassie  !  Puir  lassie  !  ”  Mrs.  Leyland, 
at  whose  portrait  also  Whistler  was  working,  remembered  that  Carlyle 
grumbled  a  good  deal.  Whistler,  in  the  end,  had,  it  is  said,  to  get 
Phil  Morris  to  sit  for  the  coat.  Walter  Greaves’  memories  are  of 
impatience  in  the  studio,  especially  when  Carlyle  saw  Whistler  working 
with  small  brushes,  so  that  Whistler  either  worked  with  big  brushes 
or  pretended  to.  William  Allingham  wrote  of  the  sittings  in  his 
diary : 

“  Carlyle  tells  me  he  is  sitting  to  Whistler.  If  C.  makes  signs  of 
changing  his  position,  W.  screams  out  in  an  agonised  tone  :  ‘  For  God’s 

1872]  ll9 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

sake,  don’t  move  !  *  C.  afterwards  said  that  all  W.’s  anxiety  seemed  to 
be  to  get  the  coat  painted  to  ideal  perfection  ;  the  face  went  for  little. 
He  had  begun  by  asking  two  or  three  sittings,  but  managed  to  get  a 
great  many.  At  last  C.  flatly  rebelled.  He  used  to  define  W.  as  the 
most  absurd  creature  on  the  face  of  the  earth.” 

Around  this  portrait  many  legends  are  gathering.  Mr.  F.  Ernest 
Jackson  has  told  us  that  a  few  years  ago,  one  evening  in  Hyde  Park, 
he  was  seated  on  a  bench  sketching,  and  an  old  man  came  up  to  him 
and,  seeing  he  was  an  artist,  asked  if  he  knew  Whistler.  Then 
the  old  man  said  that  his  father  had  posed  for  the  picture.  Whether 
this  was  Carlyle  revisiting  the  haunts  of  his  walks  or  a  pure  invention 
we  do  not  know.  Another  tale  is  that  Whistler  never  painted  the  pic¬ 
ture,  which  is  the  work  of  an  anonymous  Academician,  done  as  a  bet 
that  he  could  do  a  Whistler— it  is  a  pity  the  Academician  never  did  any 
more. 

If  Carlyle  liked  the  portrait  of  the  Mother ,  he  must  have  liked  his 
own.  There  is  the  same  quiet  balance,  the  same  careful  spacing. 
Take  away  either  the  circular  print  or  the  Butterfly  in  its  circle,  and 
the  repose  is  gone.  But  with  such  care  has  every  detail  been  arranged, 
one  never  thinks  of  the  balance,  the  arabesque,  the  pattern.  It  is 
done,  and  all  traces  of  the  thought  and  the  work  are  gone.  One  sees 
only  the  result  Whistler  meant  should  be  seen.  It  has  been  criticised 
for  ihowing  a  want  of  invention.  But  if  the  background  and  the 
arrangement  are  somewhat  the  same  as  in  the  Mother ,  it  was  because  he 
was  deliberately  carrying  out  the  same  scheme.  It  was  his  Arrangement 
in  Grey  and  Black ,  No.  II.  In  the  London  Memorial  Exhibition  it 
hung  opposite  the  Mother ,  and  as  they  were  seen  together,  the  pose 
and  colour  and  design  belonged  as  inevitably  to  the  nervous  old  man 
as  to  the  old  lady  in  her  beautiful  tranquillity.  Whistler  is  also 
said  to  have  made  a  study  of  Carlyle’s  head,  owned  by  Mr.  Burton 
Mansfield,  and  there  is  a  small  study  of  the  pose  on  the  back  of  a 
canvas,  once  owned  by  Greaves. 

The  Harmony  in  Grey  and  Green ;  Portrait  of  Miss  Alexander, 
a  commission  from  Mr.  W.  C  Alexander,  was  painted  at  the 
same  time,  and  proves  how  little  Whistler’s  invention  was  at  fault. 
There  was  no  repetition.  The  little  [girl,  in  her  white  and  green 
frock,  holding  at  her  side  her  grey  feathered  hat,  butterflies  hovering 
iso  [1872 


V 

.  IM  tt> 


i  j*‘  '  • 

^ . .  _ _ 

"  A' '  ' 

. k  it : 

VARIATIONS  IN  VIOLET  AND  GREEN 


In  the  possession  of  Sir  Charles  McLaren,  Bart. 

Showing  frame  designed  by  Whistler 
Plaque  inscribed  Whistler  at  bottom  not  by  artist 


{See  page  90; 


Portraits 

about  her,  the  weariness  of  the  pose  expressed  in  the  pouting  red  lips, 
as  she  stands  by  the  grey  wall  with  its  long  lines  of  black,  is  as  familiar 
as  Velasquez’  Infantas.  Less  known  is  Whistler’s  care  in  every  detail 
to  make  it  a  masterpiece.  He,  or  his  mother,  gave  Mrs.  Alexander 
directions  as  to  the  quality  of  the  muslin  for  the  gown,  where  it  was  to 
be  bought,  the  width  of  the  frills,  the  ruffles  at  the  neck,  the  ribbon 
bows,  the  way  the  gown  was  to  be  laundried.  And  only  after  repeatedly 
seeing  and  studying  the  picture,  does  one  learn  his  care  in  weaving  the 
colour  through  the  design.  He  called  the  portrait  Harmony  in  Grey 
and  Green,  but  the  colours  which  bind  the  arrangement  together, 
which  play  all  through  it,  are  green  and  gold.  So  wonderfully  are 
these  colours  used  like  threads  in  tapestry  that  one  does  not  see 
them,  one  feels  the  result.  As  always,  there  was  the  great  simple 
design  ;  the  pose  of  Velasquez,  the  decoration  of  Japan,  worked  out 
in  his  own  way.  The  gold  runs  along  the  top  of  the  dado. ;  tiny  gold 
buckles  fasten  the  rosettes  of  the  shoes;  there  is  a  gold  pin  in 
the  hair ;  the  gold  of  the  daisies  is  repeated  in  the  butterflies 
which  flutter  above  the  head  ;  a  note  of  gold  is  in  the  pile  of  drapery, 
and  the  floor  has  a  suggestion  of  gold  in  the  matting.  Green  plays 
the  same  note.  The  green  sash  is  carried  down  by  the  green  feather 
of  the  hat,  lost  in  the  shadow,  which  is  filled  with  green  and  gold. 
And  the  green  of  the  daisies  is  repeated  in  the  green  of  the  drapery. 
It  is  not  until  one  has  gone  all  over  the  picture  that  these  things 
become  evident.  The  shoes  look  perfectly  black,  and  so  does  the 
dado,  and  yet  there  in  no  pure  black  anywhere.  The  whole  is  bound 
together  by  this  grey,  green,  black  and  gold  scheme  running  through 
the  composition.  It  is  a  perfect  harmony.  And  so  subtle  is 
it,  that  only  the  result  is  evident,  never  the  means  by  which  it  was 
obtained. 

The  story  of  the  sittings  we  have  from  Miss  Cicely  Alexander 
(Mrs.  Spring-Rice) : 

“  My  father  wanted  him  to  paint  us  all,  I  believe,  beginning  with 
the  eldest  (my  sister,  whom  he  afterwards  began  to  paint,  but  whose 
portrait  was  never  finished).  But  after  coming  down  to  see  us,  he  wrote 
and  said  he  would  like  to  begin  with  ‘  the  light  arrangement,’  meaning 
me,  as  my  sister  was  dark.  So  I  was  the  first  victim,  and  Pm  afraid 
I  rather  considered  that  I  was  a  victim  all  through  the  sittings,  or 
1872]  121 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

rather  standings,  for  he  never  let  me  change  my  position,  and  I  believe 
I  sometimes  used  to  stand  for  hours  at  a  time.  I  know  I  used  to  get 
very  tired  and  cross,  and  often  finished  the  day  in  tears.  This  was 
especially  when  he  had  promised  to  release  me  at  a  given  time  to  go 
to  a  dancing-class,  but  when  the  time  came  I  was  still  standing,  and  the 
minutes  slipped  away,  and  he  was  quite  absorbed  and  had  quite  for¬ 
gotten  all  about  his  promise,  and  never  noticed  the  tears ;  he  used  to 
stand  a  good  way  from  his  canvas,  and  then  dart  at  it  and  then  dart 
back,  and  he  often  turned  round  to  look  in  a  looking-glass  that  hung  over 
the  mantelpiece  at  his  back-— I  suppose,  to  see  the  reflection  of  his 
painting.  Although  he  was  rather  inhuman  about  letting  me  stand 
on  for  hours  and  hours,  as  it  seemed  to  me  at  the  time,  he  was  most  kind 
in  other  ways.  If  a  blessed  black  fog  came  up  from  the  river,  and  I 
was  allowed  to  get  down,  he  never  made  any  objection  to  my  poking 
about  among  his  paints,  and  I  even  put  charcoal  eyes  to  some  of  his 
sketches  of  portraits  done  in  coloured  chalks  on  brown  paper,  and  he 
also  constantly  promised  to  paint  my  doll,  but  this  promise  was  never 
kept.  I  was  painted  at  the  little  house  in  Chelsea,  and  at  the  time  he 
was  decorating  the  staircase  ;  it  was  to  have  a  dado  of  gold,  and  it  was 
all  done  in  gold-leaf,  and  laid  on  by  himself,  I  believe  ;  he  had  number¬ 
less  little  books  of  gold-leaf  lying  about,  and  any  that  weren’t  exactly 
of  the  old-gold  shade  he  wanted,  he  gave  to  me. 

“  Mrs.  Whistler  was  living  then,  and  used  to  preside  at  delightful 
American  luncheons,  but  I  don’t  remember  that  she  ever  came  into 
the  studio— a  servant  used  to  be  sent  to  tell  him  lunch  was  ready,  and 
then  he  went  on  again  as  before.  He  painted,  and  despair  filled  my  soul, 
and  I  believe  it  was  generally  teatime  before  we  went  to  those  lunches, 
at  which  we  had  hot  biscuits  and  tinned  peaches,  and  other  unwholesome 
things,  and  I  believe  the  biscuits  came  out  of  a  little  oven  in  the  chimney, 
though  I  can’t  quite  think  how  that  could  have  been.  The  studio 
was  at  the  back  of  the  house,  and  the  drawing-room  looked  over  the 
river,  and  we  seldom  went  into  it,  but  I  remember  that  it  had  matting 
on  the  floor,  and  a  large  Japanese  basin  with  water  and  gold-fish  in  it. 
I  never  met  Mr.  Carlyle  in  the  studio,  although  he  was  being  painted 
at  the  same  time,  but  he  shook  hands  with  me  at  the  private  view  at 
the  Grosvenor  Gallery,  where  the  two  portraits  were  exhibited  for 
the  first  time.  [This  must  have  been  at  Whistler’s  own  exhibition 
122  [1872 


Portraits 


in  1874.]  I  didn’t  appreciate  that  honour  at  the  time,  any  more  than 
I  appreciated  being  painted  by  Mr.  Whistler,  and  I  m  afiaid  all  my 
memories  only  show  that  I  was  a  very  grumbling  disagreeable  little 
girl.  Of  course,  I  was  too  young  to  appreciate  Mr.  Whistler  himself, 
though  afterwards  we  were  very  good  friends  when  I  grew  older,  and 
when  he  used  to  come  to  my  father’s  house  and  make  at  once  for  the 
portrait  with  his  eyeglass  up.” 

It  is  said  that  tears  were  not  only  the  little  girl’s,  but  Whistler’s, 
and  that  there  were  seventy  sittings  before  he  finished.  Mrs.  Spring- 
Rice  writes  nothing  about  the  number  of  times  the  picture  was  rubbed 
out  and  recommenced.  He  was  beginning  to  put  in  the  entire  scheme 
at  once,  but  on  such  large  canvases  this  was  difficult.  Walter  Greaves 
says  that  the  picture  was  painted  on  an  absorbent  canvas,  and  on  a 
distemper  ground.  There  is  also  a  study  for  the  head. 

Whistler  was  as  minute  in  his  directions  for  the  portrait  of  Miss 
May  Alexander.  He  recommended  to  Mrs.  Alexander  a  milliner 
who  sold  wonderful  “  picture  hats  ”  ;  he  suggested  that  he  should 
paint  the  portrait  in  the  house  at  Campden  Hill,  so  that  he  could  see 
the  effect  of  the  picture  in  the  drawing-room  where  it  was  to  hang. 
But  it  remains  a  sketch  of  a  girl  in  riding-habit,  drawing  on  her  gloves, 
at  her  side  a  pot  of  flowers,  the  one  detail  carried  out.  He  made  a 
number  of  other  sketches  in  oils,  chalk,  pen  and  ink,  of  the  children, 
and  there  is  a  study  for  Miss  May’s  head  also.  But  only  the  Arrange¬ 
ment  in  Grey  and  Green  was  finished. 

Frederick  Leyland,  the  wealthy  shipowner,  who  had  met  Whistler 
as  early  as  1867,  about  this  time  commissioned  Whistler  to  paint  his 
four  children,  Mrs.  Leyland,  and  himself.  Leyland  had  not  yet  bought 
his  London  house,  but  often  came  up  to  town,  and  Whistler  made 
long  visits  at  Speke  Hall,  Leyland’s  place  near  Liverpool.  Mrs. 
Whistler  spent  months  there.  The  record  of  his  visits  is  in  the  etchings 
and  dry-points  of  Speke  Hall  and  Speke  Shore ,  Shipping  at  Liverpool , 
A  he  Dam  Wood ,  and  the  portraits  in  many  mediums.  Speke  Hall, 
Whistler  said,  put  him  in  better  mood  for  work.  The  house  was  not 
far  from  the  sea,  where  he  found  much  to  do.  But  the  beach  was 
flat,  at  low  tide  the  sea  ran  away  from  him,  and  at  high  tide  the  skies 
were  wrong  or  the  wind  blew,  and  when  the  sea  failed  he  turned  to 
the  portraits.  The  big  canvases  travelled  with  him,  backward  and 
1872]  123 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

forward,  from  Speke  Hall  to  London,  and  the  sittings  were  con¬ 
tinued  in  both  places.  They  all  sat  to  him.  The  children  hated 
posing  as  much  as  they  delighted  in  the  painter.  The  son,  after  three 
sittings,  refused  to  sit  again,  which  is  to  be  regretted,  for  the  pastel 
of  him,  lounging  in  a  chair,  with  big  hat  pushed  back  and  long  legs 
stretched  out,  is  full  of  boyhood.  There  are  pastels  of  the  three  little 
girls,  sketches  in  pen  and  ink  and  pencil,  one  among  the  few  studies  for 
etchings,  and  the  dry-points.  Of  Florence  Leyland,  a  large,  full- 
length  oil  was  started,  the  first  of  his  Blue  Girls  in  which  he  wished  to 
paint  blue  on  blue  as  he  had  painted  white  on  white.  Another  portrait 
of  her  was  never  finished  and,  we  believe,  never  exhibited  until  it  was 
purchased,  in  1906,  for  the  Brooklyn  Museum.  The  full-length  of 
Leyland  was  the  only  one  completed.  Of  this  there  is  a  small  oil 
study. 

Whistler  painted  Leyland  standing,  in  evening  dress,  with  the  ruffled 
shirt  he  always  wore,  against  a  dark  background,  the  first  arrangement  of 
black  on  black.  Leyland  was  good  about  standing,  we  know  from  Mrs. 
Leyland,  but  he  had  not  much  time,  and  few  portraits  gave  Whistler 
more  trouble.  Leyland  told  Val  Prinsep  that  Whistler  nearly  cried 
over  the  drawing  of  the  legs.  Greaves  says  that  “he  got  into  an  awful 
mess  over  it,”  painted  it  out  again  and  again,  and  finally  had  in  a  model 
to  pose  for  it  nude.  It  was  finished  in  the  winter  of  1873.  In  the 
portrait  of  Leyland  he  began  to  suppress  the  background,  to  put  the 
figures  into  the  atmosphere  in  which  they  stood,  without  accessories. 
The  problem  was  the  atmospheric  envelope, 7:0  make  the  figures  stand 
in  this  atmosphere,  as  far  within  their  frames  as  he  stood  from  them 
when  he  painted,  a  problem  at  which  he  worked  as  long  as  he  lived. 

Mrs.  Leyland  had  more  leisure  than  her  husband,  and  the  sittings 
amused  her.  She  had  sat  to  Rossetti,  she  was  to  sit  to  others.  She 
was  beautiful,  with  wonderful  red  hair.  Whistler  made  a  dry-point 
of  her,  The  Velvet  Gown ,  and  in  black  velvet  she  wanted  to  be  painted. 
But  he  preferred  a  dress  in  harmony  with  her  hair,  and  designed  rose 
draperies  falling  in  sweeping  curves,  and  he  placed  her  against  a  rose- 
flushed  wall  with  a  spray  of  rose  almond  blossoms  at  her  side.  In  no 
other  portrait  did  he  attempt  a  scheme  of  colour  at  once  so  sumptuous 
and  so  delicate.  The  pose  was  natural  to  her,  she  said,  though  he  made 
a  number  of  pastel  schemes  before  he  painted  it.  Her  back  is  turned, 
124  [1878 


SYMPHONY  IN  WHITE.  NO.  II 
THE  LITTLE  WHITE  GIRL 


OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Arthur  Studd,  Esq. 

Showing  the  original  frame  with  early  Butterflies  and  Swinburne's  verses  on  it. 
Photo  loaned  by  W.  II.  Low,  Esq. 

(See  page  91) 


Portraits 


her  arms  fall  loosely,  her  hands  clasped  behind  her,  her  head  in  profile. 
Mrs.  Leyland  remembered  days  when,  at  the  end  of  the  pose,  the 
portrait  looked  as  if  it  needed  only  a  few  hours’  work.  But  in  the 
morning  she  would  find  it  rubbed  out  and  all  the  work  to  be  done  again. 
Notwithstanding  the  innumerable  sittings,  one  of  Whistler’s  models, 
Maud  Franklin,  whom  he  so  often  etched  and  painted,  was  called  in 
to  pose  for  the  gown.  Whistler  knew  what  he  wanted,  and  nothing 
else  would  satisfy  him.  It  must  be  beautiful  to  be  worthy  of  the 
weariness  it  caused  her,  he  told  Mrs.  Leyland,  and  he  was  trying  for 
the  little  more  that  meant  perfection.  The  portrait  was  never  finished, 
and  yet  it  could  not  be  lovelier.  It  was  a  problem,  not  of  luminous 
dark,  but  of  luminous  light,  and  the  accessories  have  not  been  suppressed. 
The  matting  on  the  floor,  the  dado,  and  the  spray  of  almond  blossoms 
are  more  elaborately  carried  out  than  the  detail  of  any  other  portrait. 
What  worried  him,  and  probably  prevented  the  picture  being  finished, 
were  the  hands,  almost  untouched.  It  was  not  that  he  could  not  draw 
hands,  for  they  are  beautifully  drawn  sometimes,  notably  in  the  etchings. 
But  he  rarely  painted  them  well.  He  nearly  always  left  them  to  the 
last,  and  some  of  his  later  pictures  were  unfinished  because  he  could  not 
get  the  hands  right.  In  the  Sarasate,  The  Little  White  Girl ,  the 
Symphony  in  White ,  No.  III.,  the  hands  are  beautifully  painted.  Some 
one  has  said  that  an  artist  is  known  by  his  painting  of  hands.  These 
three  pictures  prove  that  Whistler  could  paint  hands,  but  it  is  as  true 
that  he  did  not  paint  them  when  he  could  help  it. 

The  portrait  of  Mrs.  Louis  Hath  was  not  only  begun  but  finished 
during  these  years.  It  is  Holbein-like  in  its  dignity,  its  sobriety,  the 
flat  modelling,  the  exquisite  rendering  of  the  lace  at  the  throat  and  the 
wrists.  Mrs.  Huth  wears  the  black  velvet  Mrs.  Leyland  wanted  to 
wear,  and  the  background  is  black  of  wonderful,  luminous,  intense 
depth.  She,  too,  stands  with  her  back  turned,  and  her  head  in  profile. 
In  this  portrait,  as  in  the  full-length  Leyland,  Whistler  carried  out  his 
method  of  putting  in  the  whole  subject  at  once.  The  background 
was  as  much  a  part  of  the  design  as  the  figure.  If  anything  went  wrong 
anywhere  the  whole  had  to  come  out  and  be  started  again.  It  was 
a  difficult  problem,  but  the  theory  taught  by  Gleyre,  and  developed  in 
the  Nocturnes,  was  perfected  in  the  portraits  of  Frederick  Leyland  and 
Mrs.  Huth . 

1878]  125 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Mrs.  Leyland  sometimes  met  Mrs.  Huth  as  they  came  and  went, 
and  this  fixes  the  date  of  the  portrait.  Mrs.  Huth  was  not  strong, 
and  Whistler  exhausted  the  strongest  who  posed  for  him.  Almost 
daily,  during  one  summer,  he  kept  her  standing  for  three  hours  without 
rest.  At  last  she  rebelled.  Watts,  she  said,  who  had  painted  her  had 
not  treated  her  in  that  way.  “  And  still,  you  know,  you  come  to  me  !  ” 
was  Whistler’s  comment.  He  had  some  mercy,  however,  and  at  times 
a  model  stood  for  her  dress. 

After  the  Academy  of  1874  opened  with  nothing  of  his  in  it,  Whistler 
took  matters  into  his  own  hands,  and,  like  Courbet  in  1855*  an<^  Manet 
in  1867,  organised  a  show  of  his  own — his  first  “  one  man  ”  show.  The 
gallery  was  at  No.  48  Pall  Mall,  and  the  collection  included  these  large 
portraits,  a  few  Nocturnes,  one  or  two  earlier  paintings,  and  one  or 
two  of  the  Projects.  Thirteen  in  all.  There  were  fifty  etchings. 
The  walls  were  grey,  the  exhibits  were  well  spaced,  there  were  palms 
and  flowers,  blue  pots  and  bronzes.  He  designed  the  card  of  invitation, 
the  simple  card  he  always  used,  and  his  mother  and  Greaves  wrote  the 
names  and  addresses,  “  all  making  Butterflies  as  hard  as  we  could,” 
Walter  Greaves  says,  rushing  out  and  posting  the  cards  until  the  letter¬ 
boxes  of  Chelsea  were  in  a  state  of  congestion.  The  private  view  was 
on  June  6.  The  catalogue  is  vague. 

The  exhibition  was  a  shock  to  London.  The  decorations  seemed  an 
indiscretion,  for  no  one  before  had  suggested  to  people,  whose  standard 
was  the  Academy,  that  a  show  of  pictures  might  be  beautiful.  The 
work  scandalised  a  generation  blinded  by  the  yearly  Academic  bazaar  ; 
they  could  not  see  the  beauty  of  flat  modelling  and  flesh  low  in  tone, 
they  preferred  the  “  foolish  sunset  ”  to  the  poetry  of  night.  But 
the  pictures  could  have  been  forgiven  more  easily  than  the  titles. 
From  the  moment  he  exhibited  them  as  Arrangements  and  Nocturnes, 
his  reputation  for  eccentricity  was  established.  He  wrote  in  A  he 
Gentle  Art  : 

“  I  know  that  many  good  people  think  my  nomenclature  funny  and 
myself  ‘  eccentric.’  Yes,  ‘  eccentric  ’  is  the  adjective  they  find  for  me. 
The  vast  majority  of  English  folk  cannot  and  will  not  consider  a  picture 
as  a  picture,  apart  from  any  story  which  it  may  be  supposed  to  tell.  .  .  . 
As  music  is  the  poetry  of  sound,  so  is  painting  the  poetry  of  sight,  and  the 
subject-matter  has  nothing  to  do  with  harmony  of  sound  or  of  colour. 
126  [1874 


The  Open  Door 

Well  received  at  first,  his  position  in  public  favour  had  of  late 
hung  in  the  balance.  The  exhibition  weighed  in  the  scales  against  him, 
and  for  almost  twenty  years  to  come,  ridicule  was  his  portion.  The 
Athenceum  and  the  Saturday  Review  ignored  the  show.  The  Pall  Mall 
saw  in  it  more  intellect  than  imagination.  Here  and  there  was  a  polite 
murmur  of  “  noble  conception  ”  and  “  Velasquez  touch.”  Of  all  that 
was  said  Whistler  singled  out  for  notice  then,  and  preservation  after¬ 
wards,  the  comments  of  a  forgotten  journal,  the  Hour.  It  has  been 
wondered  why  he  noticed  papers  of  small  importance.  When  he 
answered  the  critics  and  kept  the  correspondence,  it  was  "  to  make 
history,”  he  said,  and  he  selected  what  he  thought  important,  though 
it  might  come  from  an  unimportant  source.  The  Hour  suggested 
that  the  best  work  was  not  of  recent  date  ;  Whistler  wrote  to  remove 
“  the  melancholy  impression  ”  ;  and  notice  and  letter  “  make  history,” 
for  it  was  about  this  time  that  English  critics,  following  the  lead  of  the 
French,  were  beginning  to  say  that  he  did  not  fulfil  his  early  promise, 
and  it  is  recorded  in  A  he  Gentle  Art. 

The  pictures  of  this  period  that  remain  may  seem  few  in  number. 
But  others  were  completed  or  in  progress,  and  disappeared  before  they 
were  exhibited  or  seen  outside  the  studio.  We  have  reason  to  believe, 
however,  that  some  have  been  recently  discovered  and  will  not  be  lost 
to  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XV  :  THE  OPEN  DOOR.  THE  YEAR  EIGHTEEN 
SEVENTY-FOUR  AND  AFTER. 

“Whistler  laughed  all  his  troubles  away,”  it  has  been  said.  When 
the  Academy  rejected  him,  and  the  critics  sneered  at  his  pictures 
hung  in  other  galleries,  and  the  public  took  the  critics  seriously,  he 
laughed  the  louder,  and  felt  the  more.  English  ears  shrank  from 
his  laugh—"  his  strident  peacock  laugh,”  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  called  it. 

“  He  was  a  man  who  could  never  bear  to  be  alone,”  Mr. 
Percy  Thomas  remembers.  “  The  door  in  Lindsey  Row  was  always 
open,”  and  Whistler  liked  to  think  that  his  friends’  doors  were 
open  to  him.  Lord  Redesdale,  who  came  to  live  in  the  Row  in 
1875,  says  that  Whistler  was  always  running  in  and  out.  Through 
1874]  127 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

his  own  open  door  strange  people  drifted.  If  they  amused  him  he  forgave 
them  however  they  presumed,  and  they  usually  did  presume.  There 
was  a  man  who,  he  told  us,  came  to  dine  one  evening,  and,  asking  to 
stay  overnight,  remained  three  years : 

“  Weil,  you  know,  there  he  was ;  and  that  was  the  way  he  had 
always  lived— the  prince  of  parasites !  He  was  a  genius,  a  musician, 
the  first  of  the  ‘  ^Esthetes,’  before  the  silly  name  was  invented.  He 
hadn’t  anything  to  do  ;  he  didn’t  do  anything  but  decorate  the  dinner- 
table,  arrange  the  flowers,  and  then  play  the  piano  and  talk.  He 
hadn’t  any  enthusiasm  ;  that’s  why  he  was  so  restful.  He  was  always 
ready  to  go  to  Cremorne  with  me.  At  moments  my  mother  objected 
to  such  a  loafer  about  the  house.  And  I  would  say  to  her,  ‘  Well, 
but,  my  dear  mummy,  who  else  is  there  to  whom  we  could  say,  “  Play,” 
and  he  would  play,  and  “  Stop  playing,”  and  he  would  stop  right 
away  !  ’  Then  I  was  ill.  He  couldn’t  be  trusted  with  a  message 
to  the  doctor  or  the  druggist,  and  he  was  only  in  the  way.  But  he 
had  the  good  sense  to  see  it,  and  to  suggest  it  was  time  to  be  going  ; 
so  he  left  for  somebody  else  !  It  never  occurred  to  him  there  was  any 
reason  he  shouldn’t  live  like  that.” 

We  have  heard  of  many  others.  One,  to  whom  Whistler  entrusted 
the  money  for  the  weekly  bills,  gave  lunches  to  his  friends  and  sent 
flowers  and  chocolates  right  and  left,  while  Whistler’s  debts  multiplied. 

Artists  and  art  students  came  in  through  the  open  door  to  see 
and  to  learn,  and  were  welcomed.  If  they  came  to  loaf  and  to  play, 
they  paid  for  it.  They  ran  errands,  posted  letters,  sat  in  the  corner, 
interviewed  greater  bores  than  themselves.  They  had  to  give  up 
their  time,  and  then  the  end  came,  and  out  they  went. 

One  story  in  Chelsea  is  of  Barthe,  who  not  only  taught  art  but 
sold  tapestry.  Whistler  bought  a  number  of  things  from  him.  “  But 
vill  he  pay,  zis  Vistlaire,  vill  he  pay  ?  ”  Barthe  asked,  and  at  last  one 
evening  he  went  to  Lindsey  Row.  A  cab  was  at  the  door.  The  maid 
said  Whistler  was  not  in,  but  Barthe  heard  his  voice  and  pushed  past, 
and  said  afterwards  : 

“  Upstairs,  I  find  him,  before  a  little  picture  painting,  and  behind 
him  ze  bruzzers  Greaves  holding  candle.  And  Vistlaire  he  say,  You 
ze  very  man  I  vant  ;  hold  a  candle  S  ’  And  I  hold  a  candle.  And 
Vistlaire  he  paint,  and  he  paint,  and  zen  he  take  ze  picture,  and  he 


PORTRAIT  OF  DR.  WHISTLER 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Burton  Mansfield,  Esq. 


(See  -f>age  94) 


The  Open  Door 


go  downstair,  and  he  get  in  ze  cab,  and  he  drive  off,  and  we  hold  ze 
candle,  and  I  see  him  no  more.  Mon  Dieu,  il  est  terrible,  ce  Vistlaire  /  ” 
But  he  was  paid  the  next  da y. 

Few  men  depended  more  on  companionship  than  Whistler,  and 
to  few  was  the  companionship  women  alone  can  give  more  essential. 
All  his  life  he  retained  his  cceur  de  jemme,  and  most  of  his  friends  were 
women.  For  years,  until  her  health  broke  down,  his  mother  was  with 
him.  Many  wondered,  with  Val  Prinsep,  who  thought  Whistler  “  always 
acting  a  part,”  whether  “  behind  the  -poseur,  there  was  not  quite  a 
different  Whistler.  Those  who  saw  him  with  his  mother  were  con¬ 
scious  of  the  fact  that  the  irrepressible  Jimmy  was  very  human.  No 
one  could  have  been  a  better  son,  or  more  attentive  to  his  mother’s 
wishes.  Sometimes  old  Mrs.  Whistler,  who  was  a  stern  Presbyterian 
in  her  religion,  must  have  been  very  trying  to  her  son.  Yet  Jimmy, 
though  he  used  to  give  a  queer  smile  when  he  mentioned  them,  never 
in  any  way  complained  of  the  old  lady’s  strict  Sabbatarian  notions, 
to  which  he  bowed  without  remonstrance.” 

The  models  drifting  in  and  out  of  the  open  door  were  mostly 
women.  He  liked  to  have  them  with  him,  and  felt  it  necessary  to 
see  them  about  the  studio  for,  as  he  watched  their  movements,  they 
would  take  the  pose  he  wanted,  or  suggest  a  group,  an  arrangement. 
An  admirable  example  is  the  Whistler  in  his  Studio,  done  in  the  first 
house  in  Lindsey  Row.  It  was  a  beautiful  study,  he  wrote  to  Fantin, 
for  a  big  picture  like  the  Hommage  d  Delacroix,  with  Fantin,  Albert 
Moore,  and  himself,  the  “  White  Girl  ”  on  a  couch,  and  la  Japonaise 
walking  about,  grouped  together  in  his  studio  :  all  that  would  shock 
the  Academicians.  The  colour  was  to  be  dainty  ;  he  in  pale  grey, 
Jo  in  white,  la  Japonaise  in  flesh-colour,  Albert  Moore  and  Fantin 
to  give  the  black  note.  The  canvas  was  to  be  ten  feet  by  six.  If  he 
ever  did  more  than  the  study  of  the  two  girls  and  himself,  it  has 
disappeared.  The  painting  is  owned  by  Mr.  Douglas  Freshfield, 
and  is  as  dainty  as  Whistler  described  it.  He  holds  the  small  palette 
he  sometimes  used  with  raised  edges  to  keep  the  liquid  colour  from 
running  off,  he  wears  the  long-sleeved  white  waistcoat  in  which  he 
worked,  and  he  painted  from  the  reflection  in  the  mirror,  for  his 
brush  is  in  his  left  hand.  The  two  women  most  likely  are  the  two 
models  for  Symphony  in  White,  No.  III.,  who  have  stopped  posing. 
1874]  i  i 29 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Another  version  of  this  studio  interior  is  in  the  City  of  Dublin 
Art  Gallery,  but  Whistler  repudiated  it.  There  is  nothing  else  of  the 
kind  so  complete,  but  there  are  innumerable  studies  of  figures,  reading 
or  sewing,  not  posing,  though  the  minute  he  started  to  draw  them 
they  had  to  pose.  Everybody  who  was  with  him,  and  somebody 
always  was,  had  to  sit  and  be  painted,  etched,  or  drawn. 

Refugees  from  France  in  1870  drifted  through  the  open  door, 
artists  whose  work  was  stopped  by  the  Commune  and  who  came  to 
England  to  take  it  up  again.  There  were  Dalou,  Professor  Lanteri, 
and  Tissot  who,  at  Lindsey  Row,  found  the  inspiration  for  his  pictures 
on  the  river.  Fantin  stayed  in  Paris,  but  later  told  stories  of  the  siege 
which  Whistler  repeated  to  us.  He  asked  Fantin  what  he  did.  “  Me  ?  ” 
replied  Fantin,  “  I  hid  in  the  cellar.  Je  suis  poltron,  moi .”  One  of 
Fantin’s  many  letters  to  Edwin  Edwards  shows  Whistler’s  hold  over 
those  who  were  drawn  to  him  for  a  better  reason  than  curiosity.  It 
was  long  since  Fantin  had  heard  from  Whistler,  for  whom,  however, 
he  wrote,  his  affection  was  that  of  a  man  for  a  mistress  still  loved  despite 
the  trouble  she  might  give.  He  did  not  understand  women,  they 
frightened  him,  “  mais  au  fond ,  tout  au  fond ,  je  sens  que  si  j  etais  dime, 
je  serais  V esclave  le  plus  soumis  et  serais  peut-etre  capable  de  toutes  les 
plus  grandes  jolies.  Je  sens  que  c’est  la  meme  chose  pour  Whistler  :  s' il 
savait  comme  il  pourrait  avoir  un  ami  devoue  et  aimant  en  moi.  Malgre 
tout ,  il  est  seduisant .” 

And  yet  they  saw  less  of  each  other  as  the  years  went  on,  perhaps 
because  Fantin  became  more  of  a  hermit,  while  Whistler’s  door  opened 
wider. 

Journalists  and  critics  hurried  to  Lindsey  Row  once  they  knew  the 
door  was  open.  Mr.  Walter  Greaves,  who  sometimes  showed  the 
studio,  remembers  doing  the  honours  for  Tom  Taylor.  Whistler 
told  Mr.  Sidney  Starr  that,  while  the  Miss  Alexander  was  in  the  studio, 
Tom  Taylor  came  : 

“There  were  other  visitors.  Taylor  said,  Ah,  yes,  um,  then 
remarked  that  the  upright  line  in  the  panelling  of  the  wall  was  wrong, 
and  the  picture  would  be  better  without  it,  adding,  Of  course,  it  s 
a  matter  of  taste.’  To  which  Whistler  replied,  ‘  I  thought  that  perhaps 
for  once  you  were  going  to  get  away  without  having  said  anything 
foolish  ;  but  remember,  so  that  you  may  not  make  the  mistake  again, 


The  Open  Door 

it’s  not  a  matter  of  taste  at  all,  it  is  a  matter  of  knowledge.  Good¬ 
bye.’  ” 

Journalists  and  critics  filled  columns  with  praise  of  forgotten  master¬ 
pieces  by  unknown  Academicians,  but  seldom  spared  space  for  the 
work  in  Whistler’s  studio.  Their  gossip  after  the  visit  was  about  the 
man,  not  his  pictures. 

Poets,  the  younger  literary  men,  came  in  through  the  open  door. 
Mr.  Edmund  Gosse,  introduced  by  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti,  has  described 
to  us  his  impressions  of  the  bare  room  with  little  in  it  but  the  easel, 
and  of  the  small,  alert,  nervous  man  with  keen  eyes  and  beautiful 
hands  who  sat  before  it,  looking  at  his  canvas,  never  moving  but  looking 
steadily  for  twenty  minutes  or  half  an  hour,  perhaps,  and  then,  of  a 
sudden,  dashing  at  it,  giving  it  one  touch,  and  saying,  “  There,  well, 
I  think  that  will  do  for  to-day  !  ”  an  astonishing  experience  to  one  used 
to  tapestried  studios  and  painters  more  industrious  with  their  hands 
than  their  brains. 

The  fashionable  world,  royalty,  crowded  through  the  open  door. 
Lindsey  Row  was  lined  with  the  carriages  of  Mayfair  and  Belgravia. 
Whistler  was  the  fashion,  if  his  pictures  were  not,  and  he  could  say 
nothing,  he  could  do  nothing,  that  did  not  go  the  rounds  of  drawing¬ 
rooms  and  dinner-tables.  “  Ha,  ha  !  I  have  no  private  life  !  ”  he 
told  a  man  who  threatened  him  with  exposure.  And,  from  this  time 
onward,  he  never  had. 

He  knew  what  his  popularity  meant.  It  was  among  the  numbers 
who  gathered  about  him  because  he  was  the  fashion,  that  he  could  not 
afford  to  have  friends. 

If  the  frequent  use  of  the  name  “  Jimmie  ”  by  people  in  speak¬ 
ing  and  writing  of  him  implies  a  friendliness  on  his  part  with  every 
Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry,  nothing  could  be  further  from  the  fact. 
His  friends,  who  were  his  contemporaries,  called  him  “  Jimmie,”  but 
rarely  to  his  face,  and  the  rest  who  did  once  had  not  the  courage  to 
a  second  time.  We  remember  a  foolish  youth  who,  meeting  him 
at  our  table,  addressed  him  in  free  and  easy  fashion  as  “  Whistler.” 
He  said  nothing.  He  only  looked,  but  the  youth  did  not  forget  the 
Mr.  after  that.  Whistler  was  the  last  man  to  allow  familiarity  or 
to  make  friends.  He  understood  how  to  keep  at  a  distance  those  he 
did  not  know  or  did  not  want  to  know. 

1874]  131 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

It  was  thought  that  he  could  not  live  without  fighting,  that  to 
htm  battle  was  the  sptce  of  life.”  But  he  never  fought  until  fighting 
was  forced  upon  htm.  There  were  no  fights,  just  as  there  was  no 
mystery,  at  first.  Every  man  was  a  friend  until  he  proved  himself 
an  enemy.  Whtstler  s  temper  was  violent.  Few  who  ever  saw  him 
roused  can  forget  the  fire  of  hts  eyes,  the  fury  of  his  face,  the  sting 
of  his  tongue.  He  was  terrible  then,  and  lost  all  control  of  himself 
But  there  was  always  good  cause  for  his  rage,  and  once  the  storm  had 
passed  he  laughed  this,  as  all  his  other  troubles,  away  and  when  the 
fightmg  began  enjoyed  it.  He  liked  a  fight,  roared  over  it.  Lord 
Redesdale  has  told  us  Whistler  would  come  to  him  in  the  morning  at 
breakfast,  or  in  the  evening  after  dinner,  to  read  the  latest  correspon- 
dence,  discovering  the  dullness  of  the  enemy. 

Whistler  delighted  in  society,  finding  in  it  the  change  most  men 
nd  m  sport  or  travel.  He  hated  anything  that  stopped  his  work. 
Hunting  and  fishing  were  an  abomination.  We  never  heard  of  his 
attempting  to  shoot  except  once  at  the  Leylands’,  when,  he  said: 

I  rather  fancied  I  shot  part  of  a  hare,  for  I  thought  I  saw  the  fluff 
of  its  fur  flying.  I  knew  I  hit  a  dog,  for  I  saw  the  keeper  taking  out 
the  shot !  His  solicitor,  Mr.  William  Webb,  tried  once  to  teach  him 
to  nde  a  bmycle.  “  Learn  it  ?  No,”  he  said  to  us.  “  Why,  I  fell 
right  off™ but  I  fell  in  a  rose-bush!”  Motoring  offended  him  and 
e  abused  J.  for  taking  it  up.  But  people  amused  him,  and  he  enjoyed 
the  Parade  of  life.  ’  This  is  the  explanation  of  the  dandyism  that 
has  shocked  more  than  one  of  his  critics.  Whistler  was  never  content 
with  half-measures.  He  would  not  have  played  the  social  game  at 
all  had  he  not  been  able  to  play  it  well,  and  if  taking  infinite  pains  with 
his  appearance  means  dandyism,  then  he  was  a  dandy.  The  very  word 
pleased  him,  and  he  used  it  often,  in  American  fashion,  to  express 
per  action  or  charm  or  beauty.  Never  was  any  man  more  particular 
about  his  person  and  his  dress.  He  was  as  careful  of  his  hair  as  a  woman 
though  there  was  no  need  of  the  curling-tongs  with  which  he  has  been 
reproached  ;  the  difficulty  was  to  restrain  his  curls  and  keep  them  in 
order.  The  white  lock  gave  just  the  right  touch.  However  fashion 
changed,  he  always  wore  the  moustache  and  little  imperial  which 
other  West  Point  men  of  his  generation  retained  through  life.  Even 
his  thick  bushy  eyebrows  were  trained,  and  they  added  to  the  humorous 
132  [1874 


1 


NOCTURNE 

BLUE  AND  GOLD,  VALPARAISO  BAY 


OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 


(See  page  99) 


The  Open  Door 

or  sardonic  expression  of  the  deep  blue  eyes  from  which  many  shrank. 
His  beautiful  hands  and  nails  were  beautifully  kept.  In  his  dress 
was  always  something  a  little  different  from  that  of  other  men.  His 
clothes  were  speckless,  faultless,  fitting  irreproachably.  He  preferred 
pumps  to  boots,  short  sack-coats  to  tailed  coats.  His  linen  was  of  the 
finest,  and  a  little  Butterfly  was  embroidered  on  his  handkerchief ; 
and  his  near-sightedness  was  a  reason  for  the  monocle  of  which  he 
knew  how  to  make  such  good  use.  He  was  long  at  his  toilet,  minute 
in  every  detail.  Before  entering  a  drawing-room  we  have  seen  him 
pause  to  adjust  his  curls  and  his  cravat.  So  it  was  with  everything. 
There  was  dandyism  in  his  delicate  handwriting,  and  the  same  care 
went  to  the  arrangement  of  his  cards  of  invitation  and  his  letters  ; 
he  would  consider  even  the  placing  of  his  signature  on  a  receipt.  And 
he  devoted  no  less  attention  to  his  breakfasts  and  dinners  that  made 
the  talk  of  the  town.  He  respected  the  art  of  cookery — the  “  Family 
Bible  ”  he  called  the  cook-book  ;  he  ate  little,  but  that  little  had  to 
be  perfect  both  in  cooking  and  serving. 

From  the  beginning  at  Lindsey  Row  he  gave  these  breakfasts 
and  dinners.  Mr.  Luke  Ionides  remembers  calling  one  afternoon  when 
“  Jimmy  was  busy  putting  things  straight  ;  he  asked  me  if  I  had  any 
money.  I  told  him  I  had  twelve  shillings.  He  said  that  was  enough. 
We  went  out  together,  and  he  bought  three  chairs  at  two-and-sixpence 
each,  and  three  bottles  of  claret  at  eighteenpence  each,  and  three  sticks 
of  sealing-wax  of  different  colours  at  twopence  each.  On  our  return 
he  sealed  the  top  of  each  bottle  with  a  different  coloured  wax.  He 
then  told  me  he  expected  a  possible  buyer  to  dinner,  and  two  other 
friends.  When  we  had  taken  our  seats  at  the  table,  he  very  solemnly 
told  the  maid  to  go  down  and  bring  up  a  bottle  of  wine,  one  of  those 
with  the  red  seal.  The  maid  could  hardly  suppress  a  grin,  but  I  alone 
saw  it.  Then,  after  the  meat,  he  told  her  to  fetch  a  bottle  with  the 
blue  seal  ;  and  with  dessert  the  one  with  the  yellow  seal  was  brought, 
and  all  were  drunk  in  perfect  innocence  and  delight.  He  sold  his 
picture,  and  said  he  was  sure  the  sealing-wax  had  done  it.” 

All  his  life  he  invented  wines  and  was  continually  making  “(finds.” 
We  remember  his  discovery  of  a  wonderful  Croute  Mallard  at  the 
Cafe  Royal,  and  an  equally  wonderful  Pouilly  supplied  by  his  French 
barber,  who  had  been  one  of  Napoleon  III.’s  generals  or  Maximilian’s 
1874]  133 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

aides-de-camp.  Another  thing  at  the  Cafe  Royal  besides  the  menu 
was  the  N  on  the  wine-glasses,  which  were  said  to  have  come  from 
the  Tm enes  m  1870,  but,  no  matter  how  many  have  been  broken, 
it  is  still  there.  1  hough  he  liked  good  wine,  he  drank  as  little  as  he 
ate.  One  of  the  innumerable  stories  often  repeated  may  give  a  different 
idea  After  a  dinner  in  somebody’s  new  house  he  slipped  on  the  stairs 

"xt  ^  W3S  heIped  Up’  he  was  asked  if  had  hurt  himself, 

o,  e  sai  ,  but  it  s  all  the  fault  of  the  damned  teetotal  architect.” 

lose  who  dined  with  him,  or  with  whom  he  dined,  knew  that  he 
was  one  of  the  most  abstemious  of  men.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was 
astonishing  how  quickly  some  things  went  to  his  head.  In  later  days 
when  J.  would  stop  with  him  at  Frascati’s,  on  the  way  home  from  the 
studio  the  talk  grew  gayer,  the  “Ha!  Ha!”  louder  with  the  first 
sip  or  his  absinthe. 

We  have  the  story  of  his  first  dinner-party  from  Mr.  Walter  Greaves, 
whose  workman  was  sent  to  Madame  Venturi’s  to  borrow,  and  came  back 
hung  about  with,  pots  and  kettles  and  pans,  and  from  Mrs.  Leyland, 
w  o  lent  her  butler  and  at  the  last  moment,  with  her  sister,  put  up 
muslin  curtains  at  the  windows.  Guests  remember  Whistler’s  alarm 

mi.?  a.near~sighted  y0Ung  lady  in  white  mistook  the  Japanese  bath, 
filled  with  water-lilies,  for  a  divan,  and  tried  to  sit  on  the  goldfish  ; 
and  Leyland’s  disgust  when  Grisi’s  daughter,  whom  he  took  in  to 
dinner,  would  talk  to  him  not  of  music,  but  of  Ouida’s  novels.  Everyone 
found  the  menu  “  a  little  eccentric,  but  excellent.”  The  earliest  menu 
we  have  seen  is  one,  in  Mr.  Walter  Dowdeswell’s  possession,  of  a  dinner 
m  the  eighties,  as  simple  as  it  is  characteristic  of  Whistler,  and  we  give 
it:  Potage  Potiran  ;  Soles  Frites  ;  Boeuj  d  la  Mode  j  Chapon  au  Cresson  ; 
Salade  Laitue  ;  Marmalade  de  Pommes  ;  Omelette  au  Fromage. 

Mr.  Alan  S.  Cole’s  diary  is  the  record  of  dinners  in  the  seventies, 
of  the  company,  and  the  talk  : 

“ November  16  (1875).  Dined  with  Jimmy;  Tissot,  A.  Moore, 
and  Captain  Crabb.  Lovely  blue  and  white  china,  and  capital  small 
dinner.  Genera!  conversation  and  ideas  on  art  unfettered  by  prin¬ 
ciples.  Lovely  Japanese  lacquer. 

“  December  7  (1875).  Dined  with  Jimmy ;  Cyril  Flower,  Tissot, 
Story.  Talked  Balzac— Pere  Goriot—Cousine  Bette— Cousin  Pons— 
Jeune  Homme  de  Province  d  Paris— Illusions  perdues. 

134 


[1875 


The  Open  Door 


■■  January  6  (1876).  With  my  father  and  mother  to  dine  at 
Whistler’s.  Mrs.  Mention,  Mrs.  Stansfield,  and  Gee  there.  y 
father  on  the  innate  desire  or  ambition  of  some  men  to  be  creators, 
either  physical  or  mental.  Whistler  considered  art  had  reached  a 
climax  with  Japanese  and  Velasquez.  He  had  to  admit  natural  instinct 
and  influence,  and  the  ceaseless  changing  in  all  things. 

“  March  12  (1876).  Dined  with  Jimmy.  Miss.  Franklin  there. 
Great  conversation  on  Spiritualism,  in  which  J.  believes.  We  tried 
to  get  raps,  but  were  unsuccessful,  except  in  getting  noises  rom  stic  y 


fingers  on  the  table.  ,  , 

««  March  25  (1876).  Round  to  Whistler’s  to  dme.  Mrs.  Leyland 

and  Mrs.  Galsworthy  and  others. 

“  September  16  (1876).  Dined  with  W.  Eldon  there.  Hot  discus¬ 
sion  about  Napoleon  (. Napoleon  le  petit,  by  Hugo).  The  Commune,  with 
which  J.  sympathised  [some  fellow-feeling  for  Courbet,  the  reason 

perhaps].  Spiritualism.  ,  , 

“  December  29  (1876).  To  dine  with  J— the  Doctor.  Goldfish 
in  bowl.  Japanese  trays-storks  and  birds.  He  read  out  two  or  three 
stories  by  Bret  Harte  :  Luck  oj  Roaring  Camp ,  The  Outcasts  of  Poker 
Flat,  Tennessee's  Partner.  Chatted  as  to  doing  illustration  for  a  cata¬ 
logue  for  Mitford,  and  as  to  his  Japanese  woman,  and  a  decorated  room 


for  the  Museum. 

“  February  18  (1878).  To  Whistler’s.  Mark  Twain  s  haunting 
jingle  in  the  tramcar  :  ‘  Punch,  brothers,  punch  with  care  ;  punch 

in  the  presence  of  the  passenjaire  !  ’ 

“  March  27  (1878).  Dined  with  Whistler,  young  Mills  and  Lang, 
who  writes.  He  seemed  shocked  by  much  that  was  said  by  Jimmy 

and  Eldon.”  .  ...... 

Whistler  delighted  not  only  in  Mark  Twain’s,  but  m  all  jing  es. 
He  had  an  endless  stock  and  recited  them  in  the  most  unexpected  p  aces 
and  at  the  most  inappropriate  moments.  He  went  to  the  trouble 
to  write  down  for  us  the  lines  of  the  Woodchuck  : 


“  How  much  wood  would  the  woodchuck  chuck 
If  the  woodchuck  could  chuck  wood  F 
Why  !  just  as  much  as  the  woodchuck  would 
If  the  woodchuck  could  chuck  wood  !  ” 


1878] 


135 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

sited  foolisl  We  W“d«  why  they  never 

correspondence,  published  in  The  Gentle  *Art  a ^ 

Piper  may  be  found  HP  i  a  A  ’  W  version  of  Peter 

the  Detroit  Free  Preu  HeZ  "VT  ^  NeWS  man 

and  because  there  is  somethin*  of  th  ^  ^  -°7  ?n  Amencan  hum°ur, 
lie  never  tired  of  ? u8  f  he  Same  sPmtln  Rossetti’s  limericks 
tired  of  repeating  them,  especially  the  two  beginning  : 

There  is  an  old  person  named  Scott  1 
ancj  thinks  he  can  paint  and  cannot 

There  is  an  old  painter  called  Sandy s 
Who  suffers  from  one  of  his  glands 

Lo„rrirdinriheSunhda7  breifas,s- The  ^  ™ —  in 

exactly  life  them  has  ever  tetTn  the  worit  T h"”"' 
himself  as  his  work  ”  Ge-nro-^  TZ  u  '  were  as  much 

table,  seeing  tlat  evernw  T  r  Wtistkr  arranged  the 

and  white  fhe  silver  the  l®  P  a"d  on  11  was  beautiful;  the  blue 

vase  of  fliers  t  tl  cenrhltsaPaneSe  '”?«****  «  *hc 

from  Lord  Redesdale  or  JL  h  l  T""8  failed>  he  borrowed 
William  Whistler  who  ’  f  hl!  brother  was  married,  from  Mrs. 
Prepared  the  ,Japanese  iacAuer  was  his  admiration.  He 

bewildering  to  ^-1^^“^.^  a”d  wholly 

breakfasts  he  was  asked  tnf  H‘S  descnPtlon  °f  the  British 

rats  had  been  ’■  P“pk  M  ^ 

and  tarts  without  tast.  Chute  British"  Hist" iT 

not  for&Qf ten  W* .  ij  *  *  buckwheat  cakes  are 

and  he  never  spoke  again  tT,  ^  em  hinaself> if  the  party  were  informal, 
c  •  P  g  n  to  one  man  who  ventured  to  dislike  them 

half  tta^number*  ^ll  were™7! '  Wh°T  t0  breaHast’  more  often 

tali  at  some  of  fhe  “relfasts  ^  ““  °f  the  “mpa”p  a"d 

I}6"  7m  I?  (l8?7)-  T°  breaHaSt  at  J-’s.  F.  Dicey,  young  Potter 

[1877 


In  the  possession  of  Edmund  Davis,  Esq. 


The  Open  Door 

and  Huth  there.  He  showed  some  studies  from  figures — light  and 
elegant — to  be  finished. 

“  "June  29  (1879).  T°  Whistler’s  for  breakfast.  Much  talk  about 
Comedie-Franfaise  and  Sarah  Bernhardt. 

“  July  8  (1883).  Breakfast  at  W.’s.  Lord  Houghton,  Oscar 
Wilde,  Mrs.  Singleton,  Mrs.  Moncrieff,  Mrs.  Gerald  Potter,  Lady 
Archie  Campbell,  the  Storys,  Theodore  Watts,  and  some  others. 
Mrs.  Moncrieff  sang  well  afterwards.  Lord  Houghton  asked  me 
about  my  father’s  memoirs.  Margie  [Mrs.  Cole]  sat  by  him.” 

The  breakfasts  remain  “  charming  ”  in  Mrs.  Moncrieff’s  memory. 
And  “  charming  ”  is  Lady  Colin  Campbell’s  word.  Lady  Wolseley 
writes  us  that  she  remembers  “  a  flight  of  fans  fastened  up  on  the 
walls,  and  also  that  the  table  had  a  large  flat  blue  china  bowl,  or  dish, 
with  goldfish  and  nasturtiums  in  it.”  Mrs.  Alan  S.  Cole  recalls  a 
single  tall  lily  springing  from  the  bowl  ;  though  invited  for  twelve, 
it  was  wiser,  she  adds,  not  to  arrive  much  before  two.,  for  to  get  there 
earlier  was  often  to  hear  Whistler  splashing  in  his  bath  somewhere 
close  to  the  drawing-room.  This  was  Mr.  W.  J.  Rawlinson’s 
experience  once.  He  had  been  asked  for  twelve,  and  got  there  a  few 
minutes  before  as  for  breakfast  in  Paris.  Several  guests  had  come, 
others  followed,  a  dozen  perhaps ;  one  was  Lord  Wolseley.  For 
Whistler  they  waited — and  they  waited  and  they  waited.  At  about 
half-past  one  they  heard  a  splashing  behind  the  folding-doors.  There 
was  a  moment  of  indignation.  Then  Howell  hurried  in,  beaming 
on  them.  “  It’s  all  right,  it’s  all  right  !  ”  he  said,  “  Jimmie  won’t 
be  long  now  ;  he  is  just  having  his  bath  !  ”  Howell  talked  and  they 
waited,  and  two  struck  before  Whistler  appeared,  smiling,  gracious, 
all  in  white,  for  it  was  hot,  and  they  went  down  to  breakfast.  As  soon 
as  he  came  in  he  was  so  fascinating  that  the  waiting  was  forgotten. 
We  have  heard  but  of  one  person  who  did  not  like  the  breakfasts,  an 
artist  who  went  one  morning,  and  his  story  was  that  he  drove  down  to 
Chelsea  from  St.  John’s  Wood,  and  found  Whistler  alone,  and  they 
went  into  the  dining-room,  and  there  was  an  egg  on  toast  for  Whistler 
and  another  egg  on  toast  for  himself,  and  that  was  all.  Then  Whistler 
wanted  to  show  him  pictures,  but  he  was  furious,  and  he  said,  “  No, 
Whistler,  I  have  paid  three  shillings  and  sixpence  for  a  cab  to  come  here, 
and  I  have  eaten  one  egg,  and  I  will  look  at  no  pictures  !  ” 

1883]  137 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Sir  Rennell  Rodd  writes  us  of  the  breakfasts  at  13  Tite  Street, 
with  the  inevitable  buckwheat  cakes,  and  green  corn,  and  brilliant 
talk.  One  I  remember  particularly,  for  we  happened  to  be  thirteen. 
There  were  two  Miss  C.’s,  the  younger  of  whom  died  within  a  week 
of  the  breakfast ;  and  an  elderly  gentleman,  whose  name  I  forget,  who 
was  there,  when  he  heard  of  it  at  his  club,  said,  ‘  God  bless  my  soul !  ’ 
had  a  stroke,  and  died  too.” 

J.  was  once  only  at  a  Chelsea  breakfast,  in  1884,  at  Tite  Street, 
when  Mr.  Menpes  was  present.  But  we  often  breakfasted  in  Paris 
at  the  Rue  du  Bac,  and  in  London  at  the  Fitzroy  Street  studio.  It 
made  no  difference  who  was  there,  who  sat  beside  you,  Whistler  domi¬ 
nated  everybody  and  everything  in  his  own  as  in  every  house  he  visited. 
Though  short  and  small — a  man  of  diminutive  stature  the  usual 
description  his  was  the  commanding  presence.  When  he  talked 
everyone  listened.  At  his  table  he  had  a  delightful  way  of  waiting 
upon  his  guests.  He  would  go  round  with  a  bottle  of  Burgundy 
in  its  cradle,  talking  all  the  while,  emphasising  every  point  with  a 
dramatic  pause  just  bexore  or  just  after  filling  a  glass.  We  remember 
one  Sunday  in  Paris  in  1893— Mr.  and  Mrs.  Edwin  A.  Abbey  and 
Dr.  D.  S.  MacColl  the  other  guests — wrhen  he  told  how  he  hung  the 
pictures  at  the  annual  Liverpool  exhibition  in  1891  : 

You  know,  the  Academy  baby  by  the  dozen  had  been  sent  in, 
and  I  got  them  all  in  my  gallery ;  and  in  the  centre,  at  one  end,  I 
placed  the  birth  of  the  baby — splendid  j  and  opposite,  the  baby  with 
the  mustard-pot,  and  opposite  that  the  baby  with  the  puppy ;  and 
in  the  centre,  on  one  side,  the  baby  ill,  doctor  holding  its  pulse,  mother 
weeping.  On  the  other  by  the  door,  the  baby  dead,  the  baby’s  funeral, 
baby  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  baby  in  heaven,  babies  of  all  kinds 
and  shapes  all  along  the  line  ;  not  crowded,  you  know,  hung  with  proper 
respect  for  the  baby.  And  on  varnishing  day,  in  came  the  artists, 
each  making  for  his  own  baby.  Amazing!  His  baby  on  the  line. 
Nothing  could  be  better  !  And  they  all  shook  my  hand,  and  thanked 
me,  and  went  to  look— at  the  other  men’s  babies.  And  then  they 
saw  babies  in  front  of  them,  babies  behind  them,  babies  to  right  of 
them,  babies  to  left  of  them.  And  then,  you  know,  their  faces  fell ; 
they  didn’t  seem  to  like  it — and— well— ha  !  ha! — they  never  asked 
me  to  hang  the  pictures  again  at  Liverpool  !  What  !  ” 

138 


[1884 


The  Open  Door 

As  he  told  it  he  was  on  his  feet,  pouring  out  the  Burgundy, 
minutes  sometimes  to  fill  a  glass.  There  were  minutes  between 
one  guest  and  the  next  ;  he  seemed  never  to  be  in  his  chair  ;  it  was 
fully  two  hours  before  the  story  and  breakfast  came  to  an  end  together. 
But  though  no  one  else  had  a  chance  to  talk,  no  one  was  bored.  It 
was  the  same  wherever  he  went  if  the  people  were  sympathetic.  If 
they  were  not,  he  could  be  as  grum  as  anybody,  especially  if  he  was 
expected  to  “  show  off  ”  ;  or,  he  could  go  fast  asleep.  In  sympathetic 
houses  he  not  only  led  the  talk,  he  controlled  it.  There  is  a  legend 
that  he  and  Mark  Twain  met  for  the  first  time  at  a  dinner,  when  they 
simultaneously  asked  their  hostess  who  that  noisy  fellow  was  ?  For 
there  was  noise,  there  was  gaiety,  and  everybody  was  carried  away 
by  it,  even  the  servants. 

Whistler  was  an  artist  m  his  use  of  words  and  phrases,  making 
them  as  much  a  part  of  his  personality  as  the  white  lock  and  the  eye¬ 
glass.  His  sudden  “  What,”  his  familiar  “  Well,  you  know,”  his 
eloquent  “  H’m  !  h’m  !  ”  were  placed  as  carefully  as  the  Butterfly 
on  his  card  of  invitation,  the  blue  and  white  on  his  table.  No  man 
was  ever  so  eloquent  with  his  hands,  he  could  tell  a  whole  story  with 
his  fingers,  long,  thin,  sensitive  —  “  alive  to  the  tips,  like  the  fingers 
of  a  mesmerist,”  Mr.  Arthur  Symons  writes  of  them.  No  man  ever 
put  so  much  into  words  as  he  into  the  pause  for  the  laugh,  into  the  laugh 
itself,  the  loud,  sharp  “  Ha,  ha  !  ”  and  into  the  deliberate  adjusting 
of  his  eye-glass.  So  much  was  in  his  manner  that  it  is  almost  impossible 
to  give  an  idea  of  his  talk  to  those  who  never  heard  it.  We  have  listened 
to  him  with  wonder  and  delight,  and  afterwards  tried  to  repeat  what 
he  said,  to  find  it  fall  flat  and  lifeless  without  the  play  of  his  expressive 
hands,  without  the  malice  or  the  music  of  his  laugh.  This  is  why 
the  stories  of  him  in  print  often  make  people  marvel  at  the  reputation 
they  have  brought  him.  Not  that  the  talk  was  not  good  ;  it  was. 
His  wit  was  quick,  spontaneous.  “Providence  is  very  good  to  me 
sometimes,”  was  his  answer  when  we  asked  him  how  he  found  the 
telling  word.  He  has  been  compared  to  Degas,  who,  it  is  said,  leads 
up  the  talk  to  a  witticism  prepared  beforehand  ;  Whistler’s  wit  met 
like  a  flash  the  challenge  he  could  not  have  anticipated.  He  loved  a 
good  story,  made  the  most  of  it,  treated  it  with  a  delicacy,  a  humour 
that  was  irresistible.  He  could  be  fantastic,  malicious,  audacious, 
1893]  r39 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

serious,  everything  but  dull  or  gross.  He  shrank  from  grossness.  No 
one,  not  his  worst  enemies,  can  recall  a  story  from  him  with  a  touch 
or  taint  of  it.  The  ugly,  the  unclean  revolted  him. 

We  have  heard  of  Sundays  when  Whistler  sketched  the  people 
who  were  there,  hanging  the  sketches  in  his  dining-room.  One  Sunday 
he  made  the  dry-point  of  Lord  (then  Sir  Garnet)  Wolseley.  Lord 
Wolseley  himself  has  forgotten  it  :  “I  fear,  beyond  the  recollection 
of  an  agreeable  luncheon  at  his  house  at  Chelsea,  I  have  no  reminis¬ 
cence,”  he  wrote  to  us.  And  Lady  Wolseley  thinks  “  Lord  Wolseley 
may  have  gone  to  him  for  sittings  early,  and  have  breakfasted  with  him. 
I  have  a  vague  impression.”  But  Howell  was  summoned  that  Sunday 
from  Putney  to  amuse  the  sitter  and  prevent  his  hurrying  off,  and  he 
put  the  date  in  his  diary  : 

“November  24  (1877).  Went  to  Whistler’s,  met  Sir  Garnet 
Wolseley.  Whistler  etched  him  ;  got  two  first  proofs,  second  one 
touched,  42 s.  Met  Pellegrini  and  Godwin.” 

Whistler  went  everywhere,  and  knew  everybody,  though  he  did 
not  allow  everybody  to  know  him.  When  somebody  said  to  him, 
The  Prince  of  Wales  says  he  knows  you,”  Whistler’s  answer  was, 
“  That’s  only  his  side.”  He  lived  at  a  rate  that  would  have  killed 
most  men,  and  at  an  expense  in  details  that  was  fabulous.  “  I  never 
dined  alone  for  years,”  he  said.  If  no  one  was  coming  to  him,  if  no 
one  had  invited  him,  he  dined  at  a  club.  Pie  was  a  familiar  figure, 
at  different  periods,  in  the  Arts,  Chelsea,  and  Hogarth  Clubs,  the 
Arundel,  the  Beaufort  Grill  Club,  or,  for  supper,  at  the  Beefsteak 
Club.  Many  of  his  letters,  for  a  period,  were  dated  from  “  The 
Fielding.  He  was  once  put  up  at  the  Savile,  he  told  us,  but  heard  no 
more  about  it  5  and  at  the  Savage,  but  that,  he  said,  “  is  a  club  to  belong 
to,  never  to  go  to.”  At  the  Reform,  had  he  thought  of  it,  he  lost  all 
chance  of  election  one  night  when  his  laugh  woke  up  the  old  gentleman 
whose  snores  were  equally  loud  in  the  reading-room.  An  amusing  proof 
of  the  number  of  his  clubs  is  Mr.  Alden  Weir’s  story  of  passing  through 
London  and  being  asked  to  dine  by  Whistler,  who  suggested  first  one 
club,  then  another,  and  drove  him  about  to  half  a  dozen  or  more, 
at  each  getting  out  of  the  cab  alone  and  coming  back  to  say  nobody 
of  any  account  was  there,  or  the  dinner  was  not  good,  or  some 
other  excuse  ;  and,  at  last,  with  an  apology,  driving  him  home  to 
1 4°  [1877 


In  the  possession  of  Alfred  Chapman,  Esq. 


The  Open  Door 

Chelsea,  where  a  large  party  waited  and  an  excellent  dinner  was  served, 
and  Mr.  Weir  was  the  one  guest  not  in  evening  dress,  for  Whistler 
kept  the  party  waiting  still  longer  while  he  changed.  In  the 
Lindsey  Row  days  Whistler  sometimes  dined  in  a  cheap  French 
restaurant,  “  good  of  its  kind,”  with  Albert  Moore  and  Homer  Martin, 
a  man  he  delighted  in.  Many  artists  dined  there,  he  said,  and  would 
sit  and  talk  until  late.  “  But,  then,  you  know,  the  sort  of  Englishman 
who  is  entirely  outside  all  these  things,  and  likes  to  think  he  is  in  it, 
began  to  come  too,  and  that  ruined  it.” 

To  Pagani’s,  in  Great  Portland  Street,  a  tiny  place  then,  he  went 
with  Pellegrini  and  others.  He  was  often  at  the  Cafe  Royal  m  the 
eighties  with  Oscar  Wilde  ;  towards  the  end,  Mr.  Heinemann,  Mr. 
E.  G.  Kennedy,  and  we  were  apt  to  be  with  him,  when,  if  he  ordered 
the  dinner,  Poulet  en  casserole  was  the  principal  dish,  and  sweet  cham¬ 
pagne  the  wine.  Never  shall  we  forget  a  dinner  there,  m  1899,  to 
Mr.  Freer,  who  had  just  bought  a  picture.  We  and  Mr.  Heinemann 
were  the  other  guests.  Much  as  Whistler  wished  to  be  amiable  to 
Mr.  Freer,  he  was  tired,  and,  somehow,  the  dinner  was  not  right,  and 
there  were  scenes  in  our  corner  behind  the  screen.  Mr.  Freer  felt 
it  necessary  to  entertain  the  party,  which  he  did  by  talking  pictures 
like  a  new  critic,  and  Japanese  prints  like  a  cultured  school-ma’am. 
Whistler  slept  loudly  and  we  tried  to  be  attentive,  until  at  length, 
at  some  psychological  moment  in  Hiroshige’s  life  or  in  Mr.  Freer’s 
collection,  Whistler  snored  such  a  tremendous  snore  that  he  woke 
himself  up,  crying  :  “  Good  Heavens !  Who  is  snoring  ?  ” 

Whistler  had  the  faculty  of  being  late  when  invited  to  dinner. 
One  official  evening,  he  arrived  an  hour  after  the  time.  “  We  are  so 
hungry,  Mr.  Whistler  !  ”  said  his  host.  “  What  a  good  sign  !  ”  was 
his  answer.  At  times  he  felt  “  like  a  little  devil,”  and  he  told  us  of 
one  of  these  occasions  : 

“  I  arrived.  In  the  middle  of  the  drawing-room  table  was  the  new 
Fortnightly  Review ,  wet  from  the  press ;  in  it  an  article  on  Meryon 
by  Wedmore,  and  there  was  Wedmore— the  distinguished  guest.  I 
felt  the  excitement  over  the  great  man,  and  the  great  things  he  had 
been  doing.  Wedmore  took  the  hostess  in  to  dinner  ;  I  was  on  her 
other  side,  seeing  things,  bent  on  making  the  most  of  them.  And  I 
talked  of  critics,  of  Wedmore,  as  though  I  did  not  know  who  sat  opposite. 
1879]  H1 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

And  I  was  nudged,  my  foot  kicked  under  the  table.  But  I  talked. 
And  whenever  the  conversation  turned  on  Meryon,  or  Wedmore’s 
article,  or  other  serious  things,  I  told  another  story,  and  I  laughed— 
ha  ha  !  — and  they  couldn’t  help  it,  they  all  laughed  with  me,  and  Wed- 
more  was  forgotten,  and  I  was  the  hero  of  the  evening.  And  Wedmore 
has  never  forgiven  me.” 

Whistler  went  a  great  deal  to  the  theatre  in  the  seventies  and 
eighties,  and  was  always  at  first  nights.  Occasionally  he  acted  in 
amateur  theatricals.  In  1876  he  played  in  Under  the  Umbrella,  at 
the  Albert  Hall,  and  was  elated  by  a  paragraph  on  his  performance 
in  the  Daily  News.  He  showed  himself  at  private  views  and  at  the 
ceremonies  society  approves.  To  see  and  be  seen  was  part  of  the 
social  game,  and  the  world,  meeting  him  everywhere,  mistook  him 
for  the  Butterfly  for  which  he  seemed  to  pose. 


CHAPTER  XVI  :  THE  PEACOCK  ROOM.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-FOUR  TO  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY- 
SEVEN. 

For  a  year  after  the  exhibition  in  Pall  Mall,  Whistler  did  not  show  any 
paintings.  Artists  said  his  pictures  were  not  serious  because  not  finished. 
Whistler  retorted  that  theirs  “  might  be  finished,  but— well— they 
never  had  been  begun.”  Such  remarks  were  not  favoured  by  hanging 
committees.  Probably  Royal  Academicians  were  honest,  though 
malicious.  Lord  Redesdale  remembers  one  whose  work  is  forgotten, 
who  used  to  say  that  Whistler  was  losing  his  eyesight,  that  he  could  not 
see.  there  was  no  paint  on  his  canvas.  Mr.  G.  A.  Holmes  told  us 
that  a  few  artists  in  Chelsea,  though  they  disliked  him  personally, 
thought  him  a  man  with  new  ideas  who  threw  new  light  on  art ;  Henry 
Moore  said  to  Mr.  Holmes  that  Whistler  put  more  atmosphere  into 
his  pictures  than  any  man  living.  But  Academicians,  as  a  rule,  were 
afraid  of  him  and  Whistler  would  tell  Mr.  Holmes :  “  Well,  you  know, 
they  want  to  treat  me  like  a  sheet  of  note-paper,  and  crumple  me  up  !  ” 
His  prints  were  hung  in  exhibitions,  many  lent  by  Anderson  Rose 
to  the  Liverpool  Art  Club  in  October  1874,  and  a  few  months  afterwards 
to  the  Hartley  Institution  at  Southampton.  Shortly  before  the 
142  [1874 


The  Peacock  Room 

Liverpool  show  opened,  Mr.  Ralph  Thomas  issued  the  first  catalogue 
of  Whistler’s  etchings  :  A  Catalogue  oj  the  Etchings  and  Drypoints  of 
James  Abbott  MacNeil  Whistler ,  London ,  Privately  Printed  by  John 
Russell  Smith,  of  3 6  Soho  Square.  Of  the  fifty  copies  printed,  only 
twenty-five  were  for  sale,  so  that  it  became  at  once  rare.  Mr.  Percy 
Thomas  etched  Whistler’s  portrait  of  himself  with  his  brushes  as 
frontispiece.  Mr.  Ralph  Thomas  described  the  plates,  and  as  he  had 
been  with  Whistler  when  many  were  made  and  printed,  he  was  far 
better  qualified  than  any  of  his  successors.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted 
Wedmore  did  not  follow  Thomas  excellent  beginning. 

In  1875,  Whistler  exhibited  pictures  in  the  few  galleries  that 
would  hang  him.  In  October  he  sent  to  the  Winter  Exhibition  at 
the  Dudley  Gallery  a  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Gold,  No.  III.,  which  is 
impossible  to  identify,  and  Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold  The  Falling 
Rocket,  which  Ruskin  presently  identified  beyond  possibility  of  doubt  : 
the  impression  of  fireworks  in  the  gardens  of  Cremorne.  But  at  the 
Dudley  it  created  no  sensation.  F.  G.  Stephens,  in  the  Athenceum, 
was  almost  alone  in  its  praise.  A  month  later,  November  1875,  Chelsea 
Reach— Harmony  in  Grey,  and  many  studies  of  figures  on  brown  paper 
were  at  the  Winter  Exhibition  of  the  Society  of  French  Artists,  and 
three  Nocturnes  in  the  Spring  Exhibition  (1876)  of  the  same  Society. 
Thus  Whistler  managed  without  the  Royal  Academy. 

When  Irving  appeared  as  Philip  II.  in  1874,  Whistler  was  struck 
with  the  tall,  slim,  romantic  figure  in  silvery  greys  and  blacks,  and 
got  him  to  pose.  Mr.  Bernhard  Sickert  thinks  it  extraordinary 
that  Whistler  failed  to  suggest  Irving’s  character.  We  think  it  more 
extraordinary  for  Mr.  Sickert  to  forget  that  Whistler  was  painting 
Irving  made  up  as  Philip  II.  and  not  as  Henry  Irving.  Mr.  Cole 
saw  the  picture  on  May  5,  1876,  and  found  Whistler  “  quite  madly 
enthusiastic  about  his  power  of  painting  such  full-lengths  in  two 
sittings  or  so.”  The  reproduction  in  M.  Duret’s  Whistler  differs  in 
so  many  details  from  the  picture  to-day,  that  at  first  we  wondered  if 
two  portraits  were  painted.  M.  Duret  tells  us  that  his  reproduction 
is  from  a  photograph  lent  him  by  George  Lucas.  Probably,  M. 
Duret  writes,  the  photograph  was  taken  while  Whistler  was  painting 
the  picture,  which  afterwards  he  must  have  altered.  On  comparing 
the  photograph  carefully  with  the  picture,  we  do  not  believe  there  were 
1876]  *43 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

two  portraits,  but  there  were  many  changes.  In  the  photograph  the 
cloak  is  thrown  back  over  the  actor’s  right  shoulder,  showing  his  arm. 
In  the  exhibited  picture  his  arm  is  hidden  by  the  cloak,  and  his  hand, 
which  before  seems  to  have  been  thrust  into  his  doublet,  rests  upon 
the  collar  of  an  order.  The  trunks,  apparently,  were  much  altered, 
especially  the  right,  and  the  legs  are  far  better  drawn,  the  left  foot 
entirely  repainted.  Though  Whistler  was  acquiring  more  certainty 
in  putting  in  these  big  portraits  at  once,  he  was  becoming  more  exacting, 
and  he  made  repeated  changes.  When  the  Irving  was  hung  at  the 
Grosvenor  Gallery,  Mrs.  Stillman  remembers  that  three  different 
outlines  of  the  figure  were  visible.  The  portrait  was  not  a  commission. 
It  is  said  that  Irving  refused  the  small  price  Whistler  asked  for  it,  but 
later,  seeing  his  legs  sticking  out  from  under  a  pile  of  canvases  in  a 
Wardour  Street  shop,  recognised  them  and  bought  the  picture  for 
ten  guineas.  Mr.  Bram  Stoker  writes  that,  at  the  time  of  the  bank¬ 
ruptcy,  Whistler  sold  it  to  Irving  “  for  either  twenty  or  forty  pounds — 
I  forget  which.”  The  facts  are  that  Whistler  sold  the  Irving  to  Howell, 
for  “  ten  pounds  and  a  sealskin  coat,”  Howell  recorded  in  his  diary, 
and  that  from  him  it  passed  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Graves,  the  print  seller 
in  Pall  Mall,  who  sold  it  to  Irving  for  one  hundred  pounds.  After 
Irving’s  death,  it  came  up  for  sale  at  Christie’s,  and  fetched  five  thousand 
pounds,  becoming  the  property  of  Mr.  Thomas,  of  Philadelphia.  On 
the  death  of  Mr.  Thomas  it  was  purchased  for  the  Metropolitan  Museum 
in  New  York. 

A  portrait  of  Sir  Henry  Cole  was  begun  this  spring.  Mr.  Alan 
S.  Cole,  in  his  diary  (May  19,  1876),  speaks  of  “  a  strong  commencement 
upon  a  nearly  life-size  portrait  of  my  father.  Looking  at  it  reflected 
in  a  glass,  and  how  the  figure  stood  within  the  frame.”  This  was  never 
finished.  Whistler’s  executrix  says  it  was  burned. 

Lord  Redesdale  tells  us  of  a  beautiful  full-length  of  his  wife  in 
Chinese  blue  silk  Whistler  called  fair,  his  word  then  for  everything  he 
liked.  With  two  or  three  more  sittings  and  a  little  work,  it  would  have 
been  finished.  But  it  was  a  difficult  moment,  men  were  in  possession 
at  No.  2  Lindsey  Row,  and  he  slashed  the  canvas.  The  debt  was 
small,  thirty  pounds  or  so,  and  the  price  agreed  upon  for  the  portrait 
was  two  hundred  guineas.  Lord  Redesdale  would  gladly  have  settled 
the  matter,  but  Whistler  said  nothing.  A  portrait  started  of  Lord 
144  [1S76 


SEA  BEACH  WITH  FIGURES 
STUDY  FOR  THE  SIX  PROJECTS 

PASTEL 

(See  iiage  104  ) 


The  Peacock  Room 

Redesdale,  in  Van  Dyck  costume,  and  several  Nocturnes  were  torn  off 
stretchers  and  slashed,  The  Fur  Jacket,  Rosa  Corder,  Connie  Gilchrist 
with  the  Skipping  Rope— The  Gold  Girl,  Effie  Deans,  were  being  painted. 
The  Fur  Jacket,  Arrangement  in  Black  and  Brown  his  final  name  for 
it,  is  the  portrait  of  Maud,  Miss  Franklin,  who  now  becomes  more 
important  in  his  life  and  in  his  art.  It  is  of  great  dignity.  The  dress 
is  put  in  with  a  full,  sweeping  brush  in  long  flowing  lines,  classic  in  the 
fall  of  the  folds ;  the  pale,  beautiful  face  looks  out  like  a  flower  from 
the  depth  of  the  background.  In  many  portraits  Whistler  was  rebuked 
for  sacrificing  the  face  to  the  design  ;  here  the  interest  is  concentrated 
on  the  face,  and  that  is  why  the  shadowy  figure  has  been  criticised  as 
a  mere  ghost,  a  mere  rub-in  of  colour,  on  the  canvas.  That  he  carried 
the  work  as  far  as  he  thought  it  should  be  carried  is  certain  when  it 
is  contrasted  with  Rosa  C order,  also  an  Arrangement  in  Black  and  Brown , 
in  which  the  jacket,  the  feathered  hat  in  her  hand,  the  trailing  skirt, 
the  face  in  severe  profile,  are  more  solidly  modelled.  M.  Blanche 
has  stated  that  Whistler,  in  Cheyne  Walk,  saw  Miss  Rosa  Corder  in 
her  brown  dress  pass  a  door  painted  black,  and  was  struck  with  the 
scheme  of  colour.  This  may  be  true,  for,  as  we  have  shown,  chance 
often  suggested  the  effect  or  arrangement.  Connie  Gilchrist— The 
Gold  Girl,  a  popular  dancer  at  the  Gaiety,  attracted  Whistler  by  her 
stage  dress,  which  revealed  her  slight  girlish  form  in  its  delicate  youthful 
beauty.  He  posed  her  in  the  studio  as  he  had  seen  her  on  the  stage, 
skipping.  But  the  movement  which  told  on  the  stage  by  its  simplicity 
its  spontaneity,  became  in  the  picture  artificial.  The  figure  has  the 
elegance  of  the  little  pastels,  it  is  placed  with  the  distinction  of  the 
Miss  Alexander,  but  the  suspended  action  gives  the  sense  of  incom¬ 
pleteness.  A  long  line  swept  down  the  back  of  the  figure  proves  he 
meant  to  change  it. 

Always  the  pictures  he  was  painting  were  in  his  mind.  He  memo¬ 
rised  them  as  he  did  the  Nocturnes,  and  over  and  over,  instead  of  telling 
what  he  was  painting,  he  would  make,  to  show  those  he  knew  would 
understand,  pen  or  wash  sketches  of  the  work  he  was  engaged  on, 
leaving  the  sketches,  many  of  which  exist,  with  his  friends.  There 
are  records  of  the  kind  of  most  of  these  portraits. 

No  portraits  were  shown  in  1876,  for  other  work  engrossed  him. 
It  was  the  year  of  The  Peacock  Room. 

1876]  K 


H5 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

We  do  not  know  how  he  got  the  idea  of  the  peacock  as  a  motive 
for  decoration,  or  where  he  obtained  his  knowledge  of  it.  But  the 
scheme  was  first  proposed  to  Mr.  W.  C.  Alexander  for  his  house  on 
Campden  Hill,  and  Whistler  put  down  a  few  notes  in  pen  and  ink. 
The  work  went  no  further,  and  he  arranged,  instead,  a  harmony  in 
white  for  the  drawing-room,  replaced  afterwards  by  Eastern  tapestries. 
Then  Leyland  bought  his  house  in  Prince’s  Gate.  Leyland’s  ambition 
was  to  live  the  life  of  an  ancient  Venetian  merchant  in  modern  London, 
and  he  began  to  remodel  the  interior  and  fill  it  with  beautiful  things. 
He  bought  the  gilded  staircase  from  Northumberland  House,  which 
was  being  pulled  down.  He  commissioned  Whistler  to  suggest  the 
colour  in  the  hall,  and  paint  the  detail  of  blossom  and  leaf  on  the  panels 
of  the  dado.  To  Leyland’s  house  to  see  Whistler’s  colouring  of  Hall — 
very  delicate  cocoa  colour  and  gold — successful,”  Air.  Cole  wrote, 
March  24.  Leyland  covered  the  walls  of  drawing-  and  reception- 
rooms  .with  pictures.  He  had  work  by  Filippo  Lippi,  Botticelli, 
Crivelli.  He  owned  Rossetti’s  Blessed  Damosel  and  Lady  Lilith , 
Millais’  Eve  of  St.  Agnes,  Ford  Madox  Brown’s  Chaucer  at  King  Edward’s 
Court,  Windus  Hurd  Helen ,  Burne-Jones’  Mirror  of  Venus  and  Wine  of 
Circe.  He  bought  Legros,  Watts,  and  Albert  Moore.  Whistler’s 
Princesse  du  Pays  de  la  Porcelaine  was  his,  and  he  hung  it  in  the  dining¬ 
room  amidst  his  splendid  collection  of  blue  and  white  china. 

Norman  Shaw  was  making  the  alterations  to  the  house,  and  another 
architect,  Jeckyll,  was  suggested  by  Mr.  Murray  Marks  to  decorate 
the  dining-room  and  arrange  the  blue  and  white.  Some  say  that 
originally  Morris  and  Burne-Jones  were  to  do  the  dining-room,  but 
that  when  Whistler  stepped  in  they  vanished.  Jeckyll  put  up  shelves 
to  hold  the  china,  and  Whistler  designed  the  sideboard.  The  Princesse 
was  placed  over  the  mantel,  and  space  left  at  the  opposite  end  of  the 
room  for  another  painting  by  Whistler,  who  wished  the  Three  Figures, 
Pink  and  Grey  to  face  the  Princesse.  The  walls  were  hung  with  Norwich 
leather.  The  shelves  were  divided  by  perpendicular  lines  endlessly 
repeated,  and  the  panelled  ceiling,  with  its  pendant  lamps,  was  heavy. 
Whistler  maintained  that  the  red  border  of  the  rug  and  the  red  flowers 
in  the  centre  of  each  panel  of  the  leather  killed  the  delicate  tones  of 
his  picture.  Leyland  agreed.  The  red  border  was  cut  off  the  rug,  and 
Whistler  gilded,  or  painted,  the  flowers  on  the  leather  with  yellow  and 
H6  [1876 


The  Peacock  Room 

gold.  The  result  was  horrible  ;  the  yellow  paint  and  gilding  “  swore  ” 
at  the  yellow  tone  of  the  leather.  Something  else  must  be  done,  and 
again  Leyland  agreed.  The  something  else  developed  into  the  scheme 
of  decoration  first  submitted  to  Mr.  Alexander  :  The  Peacock  Room. 

He  told  us  one  evening,  when  talking  of  it  :  “  Well,  you  know,  I 
just  painted  as  I  went  on,  without  design  or  sketch — it  grew  as  I  painted. 
And  towards  the  end  I  reached  such  a  point  of  perfection— putting 
in  every  touch  with  such  freedom — that  when  I  came  round  to  the 
corner  where  I  had  started,  why,  I  had  to  paint  part  of  it  over  again, 
or  the  difference  would  have  been  too  marked.  And  the  harmony  in 
blue  and  gold  developing,  you  know,  I  forgot  everything  in  my  joy 
in  it  !  ” 

He  had  planned  a  journey  to  Venice,  and  new  series  of  etchings 
there  and  in  France  and  Holland.  The  journey  was  postponed.  At 
the  end  of  the  season,  the  Leylands  went  to  Speke  Hall.  Whistler 
remained  at  Prince’s  Gate.  1.  own  emptied,  he  was  still  there,  spending 
his  days  on  ladders  and  scaffolding,  or  lying  in  a  hammock  painting. 
His  two  pupils  helped  him  :  “  We  laid  on  the  gold,’"  Mr.  Walter 
Greaves  says,  and  there  were  times  when  the  three  were  found  with 
their  hair  and  faces  covered  with  it.  Whistler’s  description  of  this 
whirlwind  of  work  was  “  the  show’s  afire,”  an  expression  he  used  for 
years  when  things  were  going.  He  was  up  before  six,  at  Prince  s 
Gate  an  hour  or  so  after,  at  noon  jumping  into  a  hansom  and  driving 
home  to  lunch,  then  hurrying  back  to  his  work.  At  night  he  was  fit  for 
nothing  but  bed,  “  so  full  were  my  eyes  of  sleep  and  peacock  feathers,” 
he  told  us.  He  thought  only  of  the  beauty  growing  in  his  hands. 
Autumn  came.  Lionel  Robinson  and  Sir  Thomas  Sutherland,  with 
whom  he  was  to  have  gone  to  Venice,  started  without  him.  He  could 
not  drop  the  work  at  Prince’s  Gate. 

A  record  of  his  progress  is  in  the  short  notes  of  Mr.  Cole’s  diary  : 

“  September  ii  (1876).  Whistler  dined.  Most  entertaining  with 
his  brilliant  description  of  his  successful  decorations  at  Leyland’s. 

“  September  20.  To  see  Peacock  Room.  Peacock  feather  devices— 
blues  and  golds — extremely  new  and  original. 

“  October  26.  To  see  room  which  is  developing.  The  dado  and 
panels  greatly  help  it.  Met  Poynter,  who  spoke  highly  of  Whistler’s 
decoration. 

1876] 


H7 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

the  varnished  surfaced  blocky  T™  W“n  M°°d7'  He  did  not  “ 
“  October  2q.  To  Peacock^  » T  l*™  °”  the  gold' 

“  Nobler  to.  The  b Le  ^  (L°rd  Redesdak>  came. 

»  “ost  admirable  in  effec  and  br01™  .(k«her)  background 

w.  quite  mad  with  excimmem  “  g°W  “  fine. 

Left  P.  T^dth  Jimm^lth  Pnn“  ^  tD  See  Whistler  and  the  room. 

;;  November  29.  Golden  Peacocks  promise  to  be  superb 
December  4.  Peacocks  superb  superb. 

9.  wbS“  1 77 Post °n  *  w 

Leyland  much  perturbed  as  I  head  ^  “  MorninZ  P°‘t. 

“*  •'  “"■*  -  *  * 

dl  .JZZ‘ZX&  3”  Td  r'"T  »  ~  J  m,,  ™,S 

his  work,  and  in  the  m  n  '  8  7c’  “  ^  S°  ““ch  Pai"»  over 

Mulreadv,  who  was  equally  scrupulous W°l1’  W“ 

toi”ce“C^;ieUrSwtlla'’  Scotland,  he  went 

imp — a  gnome.  '  “  °”  *°P  °f  3  iadd“>  looking  like  a  little 

<(  ^ut  wbat  are  you  doing  ?  ” 

“  Butmwdh0at 8 chll0ldiest  th“S  L°u  eyer  •'  ” 

Have  you  »d  UmT^  “  !  A ^  Hyland  1 

has  been  done,  you^nowThetol  itudS  room“  th“8  ^ 

tions TSer&te10  H  ^  “  3  ^cession  of  recep- 
and  the  Marqu  s  of  WesfminT  *e  Princess  Louhe 

Hastings,  for  they  se  Ztsb  7  he  Wr0te  to  his  mother  a. 

said  in  his  Reminiscences  •  cpt  UP  lhe  talk  m  London.  Boughton 

Room,  and  I  seeLTmdli  u  Jl'  IT  T  ‘  r°md  “  The  Peacock 
in  ‘  gold  on  blue  ’  and  '  blue  ”  *8|  j  /mg  °“  bls  bac!t  oftcn,  working 

ceiling,  and,  as  far  a  I  co  d  see"  fe  let  °T  J  '*?  “*“* 

Mrs.  Stillman  however  u  ,  n°  hand  touch  k  but  his  own.5’ 

148  ’  ’  remembers  the  two  pupils  working  while  she 

[1876 


NOCTURNE 
BLUE  AND  SILVER 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  Mrs.  F.  R.  Leyland 


The  Peacock  Room 

drank  tea  with  Whistler.  Lady  Ritchie  has  let  us  have  her  impressions 
of  a  visit  : 

“  Long,  long  after  the  Paris  days,  Mr.  Whistler  danced  when  I 
would  rather  have  talked.  Some  one,  I  cannot  remember  who,  it  was 
probably  one  of  Mr.  Cole’s  family,  told  me  one  day  when  I  was  walking 
up  Prince’s  Gate  that  he  was  decorating  a  house  by  which  we  were 
passing,  and  asked  me  if  I  should  like  to  go  in.  We  found  ourselves — it 
was  like  a  dream — in  a  beautiful  Peacock  Room,  full  of  lovely  lights  and 
tints,  and  romantic,  dazzling  effects.  James  Whistler,  in  a  painter’s 
smock,  stood  at  one  end  of  the  room  at  work.  Seeing  us,  he  laid 
down  his  brushes,  and  greeted  us  warmly,  and  I  talked  of  old 
Paris  days  to  him.  ‘  I  used  to  ask  you  to  dance,’  he  said,  ‘  but  you 
liked  talking  best.’  To  which  I  answered,  ‘  No,  indeed,  I  liked  dancing 
best,’  and  suddenly  I  found  myself  whirling  half-way  down  the  room.” 

Jeckyll  came,  and  his  visit  was  tragic.  When  he  saw  what  had  been 
done  to  his  work,  he  hurried  home,  gilded  his  floor,  and  forgot  his  grief 
in  a  mad-house. 

Whistler  received  the  critics  on  February  9,  1877.  A  leaflet,  for 
distribution,  was  written,  it  is  said,  by  Whistler,  though  the  wording 
does  not  suggest  it,  and  printed  by  Mr.  Thomas  Way.  It  explains 
that,  with  the  Peacocks  as  motive,  two  patterns,  derived  from  the 
eyes  and  the  breast  feathers,  were  invented  and  repeated  throughout, 
sometimes  one  alone,  sometimes  both  in  combination  ;  along  the  dado, 
blue  on  gold,  over  the  walls,  gold  on  blue,  while  the  arrangement  was 
completed  by  the  birds,  painted  in  their  splendour,  in  blue  on  the 
gold  shutters,  in  gold  on  the  blue  space  opposite  the  chimney-place. 
“  Called  and  found  Whistler  elated  with  the  praises  of  the  Press  of  The 
Peacock  Room,”  is  Mr.  Cole’s  note  on  the  18th  of  the  month.  Even 
then  it  was  not  finished.  On  March  5,  Mr.  Cole  was  “late  at  Prince’s 
Gate  with  Whistler,  consoling  him.  He  trying  to  finish  the  peacocks 
on  shutters.  With  him  till  2  A.M.,  and  walked  home.” 

Whistler  made  no  change  in  the  architectural  construction  of  the 
room.  It  was  far  from  beautiful,  with  its  perpendicular  lines,  its 
heavy  ceiling,  its  hanging  lamps,  and  its  spaces  so  broken  up  that  only 
on  the  wall  opposite  the  Prince sse  and  on  the  shutters  could  he  carry  out 
his  design  in  its  full  splendour  and  stateliness,  and  give  gorgeousness  of 
form  as  well  as  colour  ;  only  there  could  he  paint  the  peacocks  that  were 
1877]  149 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

his  motive,  so  that  it  is  by  artificial  light,  with  the  shutters  closed,  that 
the  room  is  seen  in  completeness.  He  could  do  no  more  than  adapt 
in  marvellous  fashion  the  eye  of  the  peacock,  the  throat  and  breast 
feathers  to  the  broken  surfaces.  But  in  spite  of  drawbacks,  The  Peacock 
Room  is  the  “  noble  work  ”  he  called  it  to  his  mother,  the  one  perfect 
mural  decoration  of  modern  times.  It  was  his  first  chance,  and  it  is 
a  lasting  reproach  to  his  contemporaries  that  there  was  no  one  to  offer 
him  another  until  too  late. 

Whistler,  who  in  his  pictures  avoided  literary  themes,  resorted 
to  symbolism  in  his  gold  peacocks  on  the  wall  facing  the  Princesse.  One, 
standing  amid  flying  feathers  and  gold,  clutches  in  his  claws  a  pile  of 
coins ;  the  other  spreads  his  wings  in  angry  but  triumphant  defiance  : 
"  the  Rich  Peacock  and  the  Poor  Peacock,”  Whistler  said,  symbolising 
the  relations  between  patron  and  artist. 

Leyland  had  been  away  from  Prince’s  Gate  for  months.  He  had 
seen  his  beautiful  leather  disappear  beneath  Whistler’s  blue  and  gold. 
He  had  heard  of  receptions  and  press  views  to  which  no  invitations 
had  been  issued  by  him  or  to  him,  and  he  was  annoyed  at  having  his 
private  house  turned  into  a  public  gallery.  The  crisis  came  when 
Whistler,  thinking  himself  justified  by  months  of  work,  asked  two 
thousand  guineas  for  the  decoration  of  the  room.  Leyland,  who  had 
sanctioned  only  the  retouching  of  the  leather,  could  restrain  himself 
no  longer.  Like  many  generous  men,  he  had  a  strict,  if  narrow,  sense 
of  justice.  The  original  understanding  was  that  Whistler  should  receive 
five  hundred  guineas.  This  grew  to  a  thousand  as  the  scheme  developed. 
But  when,  at  the  end,  Whistler  demanded  two  thousand,  and  there 
was  no  contract,  Leyland  sent  Whistler  one  thousand  pounds,  not  even 
guineas.  To  Whistler  this  was  an  insult.  He  felt  he  had  been  treated 
not  as  an  artist,  but  as  a  tradesman.  He  never  forgave  Leyland,  though, 
at  one  moment,  Leyland  was  prepared  to  pay  the  whole  sum  if  Whistler 
would  leave  the  house.  Whistler  refused,  preferring  to  make  Leyland 
a  gift  of  the  decoration  than  not  finish  the  panel  of  the  Peacocks,  and 
he  told  Mr.  Cole  : 

“  You  know,  there  Leyland  will  sit  at  dinner,  his  back  to  the 
Princesse ,  and  always  before  him  the  apotheosis  of  V art  et  V argent ! 

And  this  was  what  happened.  Leyland  knew  that,  in  return  for  the 
loss  of  his  leather  and  his  irritation  with  Whistler,  he  had  been  given 

ICO  t1877 


The  Grosvenor  Gallery 

something  beautiful,  and  he  kept  the  dining-room  as  Whistler  left  it, 
toning  down  not  a  flying  feather,  not  a  piece  of  gold  in  that  triumphant 
caricature.  Until  the  colour  fades  from  the  panel,  the  world  cannot 
forget  the  quarrel.  Whistler  never  forgot  it,  and  his  resentment 
against  Leyland  never  lessened.  It  may  be  that  he  was  over-sensitive, 
certainly  he  put  himself  in  the  wrong  by  his  conduct  to  Leyland.  But 
he  could  no  more  help  his  manner  of  avenging  what  he  thought  an 
insult,  than  the  meek  man  can  refrain  from  turning  the  other  cheeK 
to  the  chastiser.  It  will  ever  be  to  Leyland’s  credit  that  he  left  the 

work  alone.  _  ,  f 

A  few  years  ago  the  room  was  removed  from  the  house  in  Prince  s 
Gate,  bought  by  Messrs.  Brown  and  Phillips,  sold  by  the  nr  to  Messrs. 
Obach,  who  exhibited  it  in  their  Bond  Street  gallery,  and  it  was  then 
purchased  by  Mr.  Charles  L.  Freer  and  taken  to  Detroit.  As  he 
owns  the  Princesse ,  The  Peacock  Room  is  probably  once  again  just  as 
it  was  when  Whistler  finished  it. 


CHAPTER  XVII :  THE  GROSVENOR  GALLERY.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-SEVEN  AND  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY- 
EIGHT. 

Many  exhibitions  had  been  organised  in  opposition  to  the  Royal 
Academy,  but  on  too  small  a  scale  to  contend  against  that  rich  and 
powerful  institution.  Sir  Coutts  Lindsay,  the  founder  of  the  Grosvenor 
Gallery,  brought  to  it  money,  a  talent  for  organisation,  and  a  deter¬ 
mination  to  show  the  best  work  in  the  right  way.  Nothing  could 
have  been  more  in  accord  with  Whistler’s  ideas.  Fie  dropped  in  to 
smoke  with  Mr.  Cole  on  the  evening  of  March  19,  1876,  “in  great 
excitement  over  Sir  Coutts  Lindsay’s  gallery  for  pictures  very  select 
exhibition,  which  he  carried  to  an  extreme  by  saying  that  it  might  be 
opened  with  only  one  picture  worthy  of  being  shown  that  season.'’ 
Sir  Coutts  Lindsay  proposed  to  exhibit  no  pictures  save  those  he  invited, 
and  he  might  have  succeeded  had  he  ignored  the  Academy,  and  made 
the  Grosvenor  as  distinct  from  it  as  the  International  Society  of  Sculp¬ 
tors,  Painters  and  Gravers  was  under  Whistler’s  presidency.  Fie  had  the 
daring  to  invite  Whistler,  Rossetti,  Burne-Jones,  Holman  Hunt,  Walter 
1877]  ISI 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Crane,  Watts ;  but  the  weakness  to  include  Millais,  Alma-Tadema, 
Poynter,  Richmond,  Leighton.  “To  those  whose  work  he  wanted,  he 
gave  little  dinners,”  Mr.  Halle  has  told  us,  and  a  very  strange  lot  some 
of  them  seemed  to  Sir  Coutts  probably,  to  his  butler  certainly.  One 
evening  the  butler  could  endure  it  no  longer,  and  he  came  into  the 
drawing-room  and  whispered  :  “There’s  a  gent  downstairs  says  ’e  ’as 
come  to  dinner,  wot’s  forgot  ’is  necktie  and  stuck  a  fewer  in  his  ’air,” 
for  at  this  period  Whistler,  Mr.  Halle  says,  never  wore  a  necktie  when 
in  evening  dress.  The  white  lock  bewildered  others.  Mrs.  Leyland 
remembered  his  going  to  her  box  at  the  opera  once,  where  the 
attendant  leaned  over  and  said  :  “  Beg  your  pardon,  sir,  but  there’s 
a  white  feather  in  your  hair,  just  on  top  !  ” 

At  first,  Burne-Jones  and  the  followers  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites  were 
most  in  evidence  at  Sir  Coutts  Lindsay’s  exhibitions,  and  the  “  greenery- 
yallery,  Grosvenor  Gallery  ”  element  prevailed.  But  the  Grosvenor, 
by  the  time  its  traditions  were  taken  over  by  the  New  Gallery,  was  little 
more  than  an  overflow  from  the  Academy. 

Shortly  before  the  first  exhibition  in  1877,  Whistler’s  brother, 
the  doctor,  was  married  to  Miss  Helen  lonides,  a  cousin  of  Aleco 
and  Luke  lonides.  The  wedding  (April  17,  1877)  was  at  St.  George’s, 
Hanover  Square,  and  the  Greek  Church,  London  Wall.  It  brought 
to  Whistler  a  good  friend  for  the  troubled  years  that  were  to  come, 
and  Mrs.  Whistler’s  house  in  Wimpole  Street  was  for  long  a  home  to 
him. 

The  first  Grosvenor  was  a  loan  exhibition,  and  opened  in  May  1877. 
Whistler  sent  Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold — The  Falling  Rocket  shown 
at  the  Dudley;  Harmony  in  Amber  and  Black ,  the  first  title  of  The 
Fur  Jacket ;  Arrangement  in  Brown;  Irving  as  Philip  II.  of  Spain, 
with  the  title  Arrangement  in  Black ,  No.  III.  From  Mrs.  Leyland 
came  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Silver  ;  from  Mr.  W.  Graham  another 
Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Silver — changed  later  by  Whistler  to  Blue  and  Gold, 
Old  Battersea  Bridge ,  now  at  the  Tate  Gallery  ;  from  the  Hon.  Mrs. 
Percy  Wyndham,  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Gold,  at  Westminster.  The 
Carlyle  was  included,  but  it  arrived  too  late  to  be  catalogued.  Boehm 
lent  his  bust  of  Whistler  in  terra-cotta,  done  in  1872,  considered  at  the 
time  a  good  portrait. 

Whistler’s  work  was  also  seen  in  a  frieze,  described  by  Mr.  Walter 

152  [1877 


NOCTURNE 
BLUE  AND  GREEN 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  W.  C.  Alexander,  Esq. 


< See  page  1x2) 


The  Grosvenor  Gallery 

Crane  ■  “  Whistler  designed  the  frieze-the  phases  of  the  moon  on  the 
coved 'ceiling  of  the  West  Gallery  which  has  disappeared  *mce  i 
conversion  into  the  rEolian  Hall,  with  stars  on  a  subdued  blue  grout,  , 
“and  stars  being  brought  out  in  silver  the  frreze  beurg  drvH 

into  panels  by  the  supports  of  the  glass  roof.  The  phases 

XweX  from  no  one  else  Probably 

it  Js  overlhadowed  by  the  crimson  silk  damask  and 
ings,  the  gilded  pilasters 

°f  d'a^r^Ures.  wLtler’s 

£  rsu r  “  x-zz  sea 

"Rpfnre  the  private  view  (April  3°>  1°77/»  «  i 

expressed  his  disappointments The  and  tie J—  _  Burne. 

private  view  the  crowd  gathered  -t-  sneered 

mulcal  ^th  strange  Nocturnes,”  »”dered  how  r  g  n  d 

■•being  reduced  to  a  mere  arrangemen^  M 

that,  m  practice,  covere  a  fuH_length  portrait  as  arms  and 

fegT’ln  hZui.  Whistler’s  full-length  arrangements  suggest  to  us  a 

See  ^  wMcK 

Circulating  pulpit,  Farr  CU^era  (July  a, 

'87Ruskin,  though  social  subjects 

powerful  to  the  public,  to  himse  Already  he  was 

Pre-Raphaelites,  he  set  to  work to  unmfk=  Whr  ^  7  ^  ^ 
attacked  by  the  mental  malady,  tne  .  ,  r  j 

Cdlingwood’s  words,  that  his 

been  very  ill  m  the ^  winter  of  *77.  Nothmg  ^  for  PWMeI,s 

malice  and  insole  •  sudden  burst  of  fire  and  shower 

i"  illimitable  darkness  of  nigh, 

1877] 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

That  fireworks  in  a  place  of  entertainment  could  have  in  them  the 
elements  of  beauty  was  a  truth  Ruskin  could  not  grasp,  and  with 
this  wonderful  canvas  before  him,  he  remained  blind  to  the  splendour 
of  the  subject  and  the  mastery  of  the  painter  :  “  I  have  seen  and 
heard  much  of  cockney  impudence  before  now,  but  never  expected 
to  hear  a  coxcomb  ask  two  hundred  guineas  for  flinging  a  pot  of 
paint  in  the  public’s  face.” 

Boughton,  in  his  Reminiscences ,  tells  that  Whistler  first  chanced 
upon  this  criticism  when  they  were  alone  together  in  the  smoking-room 
of  the  Arts  Club.  “  It  is  the  most  debased  style  of  criticism  I  have  had 
thrown  at  me  yet,”  Whistler  said.  “  Sounds  rather  like  libel,”  Bough- 
ton  suggested.  “  Well— that  I  shall  try  to  find  out  !  ”  Whistler 
replied. 

Till  now,  his  answer  to  abuse  of  his  work  had  been  the  lash  of  his  wit. 
But  if  critics  had  tried  him  by  their  stupidity,  never,  before  Ruskin, 
had  they  outraged  him  by  their  venom.  The  insult  appeared  in  a 
widely  read  print ;  he  sought  redress  in  the  most  public  fashion  possible 
in  England,  and  sued  Ruskin  for  libel. 

The  immediate  result  was  that  he  found  it  harder  to  sell  his  pictures. 
To  buy  his  Nocturnes  was  to  be  ridiculed,  Mr.  Rawlinson,  one  of  the 
few  who  risked  it,  assures  us.  Whistler  laughed  away  the  new  anxiety, 
and  devoted  more  time  to  black-and-white.  He  had  hoped  to  go  to 
Venice,  but  the  preparations  for  the  trial  kept  him  in  London.  And 
now  Howell  made  himself  as  useful  to  Whistler  as  he  had  been  to 
Rossetti  : 

“Well,  you  know,  it  happened  one  summer  evening,  in  those  old 
day9  when  there  was  real  summer,  I  was  sitting  looking  out  of  the 
window  in  Lindsey  Row,  and  there  was  Howell  passing,  and  Rosa  Corder 
was  with  him.  And  I  called  to  them  and  they  came  in,  and  Howell 
said  :  ‘  Why,  you  have  etched  many  plates,  haven’t  you  ?  You  must 
get  them  out,  you  must  print  them,  you  must  let  me  see  to  them— 
there’s  gold  waiting.  And  you  have  a  press  !  ’  And  so  I  had,  in  a 
room  upstairs,  only  it  was  rusty,  it  hadn’t  been  used  for  so  long.  But 
Howell  wouldn’t  listen  to  an  objection.  He  said  he  would  fix  up  the 
press,  he  would  pull  it.  And  there  was  no  escape.  And  the  next 
morning,  there  we  all  were,  Rosa  Corder,  too,  and  Howell  was  pulling 
at  the  wheel,  and  there  were  basins  of  water,  and  paper  being  damped, 


The  Grosvenor  Gallery 

and  prints  being  dried,  and  then  Howell  was  grinding  more  ink,  and, 
with  the  plates  under  my  fingers,  I  felt  all  the  old  love  of  it  come  back. 
In  the  afternoon  Howell  would  go  and  see  Graves,  the  printseiler, 
and  there  were  orders  flying  about,  and  cheques— it  was  all  amazing, 
you  know  !  Howell  profited,  of  course.  But  he  was  so  superb.  One 
evening  we  had  left  a  pile  of  eleven  prints  just  pulled,  and  the  next 
morning  only  five  were  there.  ‘  It’s  very  strange,’  Howell  said,  we 
must  have  a  search.  No  one  could  have  taken  them  but  me,  and  that, 
you  know,  is  impossible  !  ’  ”  There  is  a  record  of  this  period  in  the 
etching,  Lady  at  a  Window ,  with  Rosa  Corder,  or  Maud,  by  the  garret 
window,  looking  at  a  print,  the  press  behind  her.  „ 

It  was  a  period  of  what  he  called  his  “  fiendish  slavery  to  the  press. 
There  were  new  plates.  In  1878  St.  James's  Street  was  reproduced  by 
lithography  in  the  “  Season  Number  ”  of  Vanity  F air.  The  Athenaum 
objected  to  it  because  it  was  “  not  done  as  Leech  or  Hogarth  would  have 
done  it.”  The  World  mistook  the  reproduction  for  the  original,  and 
so  invited  from  Whistler  one  of  the  letters  following  each  other  fast  : 
“  Atlas  has  the  wisdom  of  ages,  and  need  not  grieve  himself  with  mere 
matters  of  art.”  Adam  and  Eve — Old  Chelsea  has  a  special  interest, 
for  it  marks  the  transition  from  his  early  manner  in  the  Thames  Set 
to  the  later  handling  in  the  Venetian.  A  plate  was  made  from  the  Irving 
as  Philip  oj  Spain,  the  only  portrait  Whistler  reproduced  on  copper, 
and  it  was  not  a  success.  His  plates  of  Jo  and  Maud  were  never  from 
pictures,  though  often  studies  for  pictures  he  proposed  to  paint.  The 
dry-point  of  his  Mother  has  no  relation  to  the  portrait.  He  was 
bored  to  death  with  copying  himself,  he  would  say,  and,  twenty  years 
afterwards,  when  he  undertook  a  lithograph  of  his  Montesquiou  and  failed, 
he  said  that  “  it  was  impossible  to  produce  the  same  masterpiece 
twice  over,”  that  “  the  inspiration  would  not  come,”  that  when  he 
was  not  working  at  a  new  thing  from  Nature  he  was  not  applying  himself, 
“  it  was  as  difficult  as  for  a  hen  to  lay  the  same  egg  twice. 

In  1878  he  made  his  first  experiments  in  lithography.  His  attention 
had  been  called  to  it  by  Mr.  Thomas  Way,  who  did  more  than  any  other 
man  to  revive  the  art  in  England.  Lithography,  appropriated  by  com¬ 
merce,  was  almost  forgotten  as  a  means  of  artistic  expression.  In  France, 
it  was  given  over  for  cheaper  and  quicker  methods  of  illustration  ,  in 
England  it  was  overweighted  by  the  ponderous  performances  of  Haghe 
1878]  155 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

and  Nash,  hedged  about  by  trade  unions,  and  reduced  to  the  perfection 
of  commonplace.  Lithographers  here  and  there  preserved  its  best 
traditions  and  regretted  the  degradation.  Mr.  Thomas  Way  deter¬ 
mined  to  interest  artists  again  in  a  medium  that  had  yielded  such 
splendid  results.  He  prepared  stones  for  them,  explained  processes, 
and  would  not  hear  of  difficulties.  Some  artists  experimented,  but 
lithography  did  not  pay  while  the  anecdote  in  paint  fetched  a  fortune. 
Mr.  Way  appealed  to  Whistler,  who  tried  the  stone,  grasped  its  possi¬ 
bilities,  and  was  delighted.  In  his  first  five  lithographs  he  did  things 
never  attempted  before  and  found  the  medium  adapted  to  him.  He 
made  nine  this  year  on  the  stone,  though  his  later  work  was  mostly 
done  on  lithographic  paper.  He  proposed  to  publish  this  first  series 
as  Art  Notes ,  but  there  was  no  demand,  and  the  plan  fell  through. 
A  he  Toilet  and  the  Broad  Bridge  were  printed  in  Piccadilly  (1878),  edited 
by  Mr.  Watts-Dunton,  and  they  had  hardly  appeared  when  the  magazine 
came  to  an  end.  Neither  Whistler  nor  lithography  then  meant  success 
for  any  enterprise. 

In  1878,  the  Catalogue  of  Blue  and  White  Nankin  Porcelain  Forming 
the  Collection  of  Sir  Henry  Thompson  was  published.  Mr.  Murray 
Marks  and  Mr.  W.  C.  Alexander  own  delicate  little  designs  of  blue  and 
white  by  Whistler  for  Mr.  Marks,  but  never  used.  They  were  a  good 
preparation  for  the  drawings  which,  in  collaboration  with  Sir  Henry 
Thompson,  he  made  to  illustrate  the  Catalogue.  Some  are  in  brown, 
some  in  blue,  reproduced  by  the  Autotype  Company.  Nineteen  of  the 
twenty-six  are  by  Whistler,  simple  and  direct,  the  modelling  in  the 
drawing  by  the  brush  as  the  Japanese  would  have  given  it.  As  a  rule 
there  are  neither  shadows  nor  attempts  at  relief.  The  series  is  a  refuta¬ 
tion  of  the  assertion  that  he  could  not  draw.  Whenever  he  attempted 
drawing  of  this  sort,  or  etchings  like  The  Wine  Glass ,  he  eclipsed  Jacque- 
mart  and  all  his  contemporaries.  Worried,  anxious,  the  libel  case 
hanging  over  him,  his  debts  increasing,  the  general  distrust  in  his  work 
growing,  Whistler,  nevertheless,  gave  to  the  catalogue  his  usual  care. 
We  have  seen  another  set  of  the  drawings,  which  differ  slightly  from 
those  reproduced,  and  with  which,  evidently,  he  was  not  satisfied.  The 
book  was  edited  by  Mr.  Murray  Marks,  and  issued  by  Messrs.  Ellis  and 
White,  of  29  New  Bond  Street,  in  May,  and  Mr.  Marks  exhibited  the 
drawings  and  the  porcelain,  with  the  book,  in  his  shop,  395  Oxford 
156  [1878 


WHISTLER'S  TABLE  PALETTE 


\(See  pa%e  114) 


The  Grosvenqr  Gallery 


Street.  The  show  was  not  a  success,  the  book  was  a  loss,  though 
only  two  hundred  and  twenty  copies  were  printed.  Now  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  get. 

Of  personal  notice,  Whistler  had  more  than  enough.  He  was 
caricatured  this  year  in  Fhe  Grasshopper  at  the  Gaiety — it  was  in  the 
days  of  Edward  Terry  and  Nellie  Farren.  A  large  full-length,  thought 
by  many  more  a  portrait  than  a  caricature,  was  painted  by  Carlo 
Pellegrini,  an  Italian  artist  who  lived  in  England  and,  under  the  name 
of  “  Singe  ”  and  “  Ape,”  contributed  to  Vanity  Fair  caricatures  which, 
unlike  the  characterless,  artless  scrawls  of  his  more  popular  amateur 
successors,  were  works  of  art  and,  therefore,  appreciated  by  Whistler. 
The  painting  shows  Whistler  in  evening  dress,  no  necktie,  and  a  gold 
chain  to  his  monocle;  and  in  a  scene  parodying  the  studios  and  artists 
of  the  day,  it  was  pushed  in  on  an  easel,  some  say  by  Pellegrini,  with 
the  announcement,  “  Here  is  the  inventor  of  black-and-white  !  ”  It 
was  a  failure,  and  no  wonder.  It  was  impossible  to  see  the  point.  The 
painting  now  belongs  to  Mr.  John  W.  Simpson  of  New  York.  Whistler 
was  also  caricatured  in  Vanity  Fair  by  “  Spy,”  Leslie  Ward,  then 
rapidly  rivalling  “Ape  ”  in  popularity,  and  to  be  so  caricatured  was, 
in  London,  to  achieve  notoriety. 

To  the  second  Grosvenor  in  1878,  he  sent,  in  defiance  of  Ruskin, 
another  series  of  Nocturnes,  Harmonies,  and  Arrangements.  Among 
them  was  the  Arrangement  in  White  and  Black,  No.  /.,  the  large,  full- 
length  portrait  of  Miss  Maud  Franklin,  that  sometimes  figures  in 
catalogues  and  articles  as  V Amemcaine.  We  believe  it  was  never  shown 
in  England  again.  It  passed  in  the  early  eighties  into  the  collection 
of  Dr.  Linde,  at  Liibeck,  where  it  remained  until  1904,  was  then  sold 
through  Paris  dealers  to  an  American,  and  remains  one  of  the  least 
known  of  Whistler’s  large  full-lengths.  We  saw  it  in  the  spring  of 
1904  at  M.  Duret’s  apartment  in  the  Rue  Vignon.  It  is  the 
only  portrait,  except  the  Connie  Gilchrist  and  The  Tellozv  Buskin, 
in  which  Whistler  attempted  to  give  movement  to  the  figure.  Miss 
Franklin  wears  a  white  gown  in  the  ugly  fashion  of  the  late  seventies, 
and  walks  forward,  one  hand  on  her  hip,  the  other  holding  up  her 
skirt.  But  she  fails  to  fulfil  Whistler’s  precept  that  the  figure 
must  keep  within  the  frame.  She  seems  walking  out  of  the  depths 
of  the  background,  breaking  through  the  envelope  of  atmosphere. 
1878]  I57 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

The  problem  was  difficult,  an  unusual  one  for  Whistler,  and,  interesting 
as  is  the  result,  the  portrait  hardly  ranks  with  the  greatest.  When 
shown  in  1878,  it  did  not  help  to  reconcile  the  critics.  The  Athenceum 
said  :  “  Mr.  Whistler  is  in  great  force.  Last  year  some  of  his  life-size 
portraits  were  without  feet  ;  here  we  have  a  curiously  shaped  young 
lady,  ostentatiously  showing  her  foot,  which  is  a  pretty  large  one. 
It  was  a  “  vaporous  full-length  ”  in  the  opinion  of  the  Times,  babbling 
nonsense  about  the  Nocturnes  and  glad  to  turn  from  Whistler  s  diet 
of  fog  to  the  broad  table  of  substantial  landscape  spread  for  us  by  Cecil 
G.  Lawson.”  Whistler  contributed  a  drawing  of  the  Arrangement  in 
White  and  Black  to  Blackburn’s  Grosvenor  Notes,  an  illustrated  catalogue 
published  for  the  first  time  in  1878.  For  many  years  Whistler  made 
these  little  sketches  in  pen  and  ink  after  his  pictures  for  illustrated 
catalogues,  and  for  papers  that  illustrated  notices  of  the  exhibitions, 
an  aid  to  the  identification  of  works  where  the  titles  fail. 


CHAPTER  XVIII :  THE  WHITE  HOUSE.  THE  YEAR  EIGH¬ 
TEEN  SEVENTY-EIGHT. 

In  the  Paris  Universal  Exhibition  of  1878,  Whistler’s  only  exhibit  was 
the  section  of  a  room  that  may  have  been  his  design  for  Mr.  Alexander, 
or  more  likely  was  his  decoration  for  the  White  House  which  E.  W. 
Godwin,  the  architect,  was  building  for  him  in  Tite  Street,  Chelsea. 
He  called  it  a  Harmony  in  Yellow  and  Gold,  and  others  spoke  of  it  as 
the  Primrose  Room.  It  seems  to  have  been  simply  a  room  painted  m 
gold  and  yellow,  the  peacock  pattern  again  used,  but  this  time  in  gold 
on  yellow  and  yellow  on  gold.  There  was  simple  furniture  in  yellow 
of  a  darker  tone  than  the  walls,  also  a  chimneypiece  which,  twelve 
years  or  so  afterwards,  was  found  by  Mr.  Pickford  Waller  in  a  second¬ 
hand  furniture  shop  and  bought.  The  stove  was  taken  out ;  two  panels, 
with  a  pattern  suggested  for  the  dado,  were  turned  into  doors,  and 
the  chimneypiece  is  now  a  cabinet  with  Whistler’s  decorations  almost 
untouched. 

A  few  years  ago  Messrs.  Obach  had  in  their  possession  a  set  of  glass 
panels  for  a  door  from  the  house  of  Anderson  Rose,  stated  to  be  by 
Whistler,  but  there  is  no  evidence  of  Whistler’s  work  in  them.  Recently 


The  White  House 

a  set  of  Empire  chairs  were  shown  in  New  York  said  to  have  been  deco¬ 
rated  by  Whistler  for  Wickham  Flower,  and  so  described  at  Christie  s 
where  they  were  sold,  but  Messrs.  Christie  do  not  guarantee  the  articles 
in  their  sales.  To  those  who  know  Whistler’s  work  there  wras  no  trace 
of  it  in  the  chairs,  and  we  have  it  on  Mrs.  Flower’s  authority  that  the 
decorations  were  by  Henry  Treffy  Dunn. 

Mr.  Sheridan  Ford,  in  the  suppressed  edition  of  The  Gentle  Art , 
writes  that,  at  Sir  Thomas  Sutherland’s  request,  Whistler  designed  a 
scheme  of  decoration  for  his  house,  but  that  its  “  startling  novelty  caused 
such  evident  anxiety,”  Whistler  carried  it  no  further.  Some  houses 
he  did  decorate  later  on — those  of  Mrs.  William  Whistler,  Mr. 
William  Heinemann,  Senor  Sarasate,  Mrs.  Walter  Sickert,  Mrs.  D’Oyly 
Carte,  Mr.  Menpes.  But  the  decoration  was  simply  the  colour- 
scheme.  Whistler  mixed  the  colour,  which  was  usually  put  on  by 
house-painters.  He  frequently  suggested  the  furniture,  but  of  design, 
as  in  The  Peacock  Room,  there  was  nothing,  not  even  in  any  of  his 
own  houses  after  the  White  House.  To  one  friend,  thinking  of  decorat¬ 
ing,  who  asked  his  advice,  his  answer  was,  “  Well,  first  burn  all  your 
furniture.”  Often  he  gave  elaborate  directions  as  to  what  colours 
should  be  used  and  how  they  were  to  be  applied.  Mrs.  D’Oyly  Carte 
writes  us  : 

“  It  would  not  be  quite  correct  to  say  that  Mr.  Whistler  designed 
the  decorations  of  my  house,  because  it  is  one  of  the  old  Adam  houses 
in  Adelphi  Terrace,  and  it  contained  the  original  Adam  ceiling  in  the 
drawing-room  and  a  number  of  the  old  Adam  mantelpieces,  which 
Mr.  Whistler  much  admired,  as  he  did  also  some  of  the  cornices,  doors 
and  other  things.  What  he  did  do  was  to  design  a  colour-scheme  for 
the  house,  and  he  mixed  the  colours  for  distempering  the  walls  in  each 
case,  leaving  only  the  painters  to  apply  them.  In  this  way  he  got  the 
exact  shade  he  wanted,  which  made  all  the  difference,  as  I  think  the 
difficulty  in  getting  any  painting  satisfactorily  done  is  that  painters 
simply  have  their  stock  shades  which  they  show  you  to  choose  from, 
and  none  of  them  seem  to  be  the  kind  of  shades  that  Mr.  Whistler 
managed  to  achieve  by  the  mixing  of  his  ingredients.  He  distempered 
the  whole  of  the  staircase  light  pink  ;  the  dining-room  a  different  and 
deeper  shade  ;  the  library  he  made  one  of  those  yellows  he  had  in  his 
drawing-room  at  the  Vale,  a  sort  of  primrose  which  seemed  as  if  the  sun 
1878]  159 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

was  shining,  however  dark  the  da y,  and  he  painted  the  woodwork  with 
it  green,  but  not  like  the  ordinary  painters’  green  at  all.  He  followed 
the  same  scheme  in  the  other  rooms.  His  idea  was  to  make  the  house 
gay  and  delicate  in  colour.” 

When  he  left  No.  2  Lindsey  Row  he  suggested  the  colour  arrange¬ 
ment  throughout  the  house  for  the  new  tenants,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sydney 
Morse,  got  his  man  Cossens  to  do  the  distempering,  and,  Mrs.  Morse 
writes  us,  “  was  so  afraid  that  we  should  do  it  wrongly  that  he  personally 
superintended  the  work  and  mixed  the  colour  himself,  though  in  con¬ 
sequence  of  this  a  whole  wash  for  the  dining-room  was  spoilt,  as 
he  forgot  to  stir  it  up  at  the  right  moment.  There  was  great  discussion 
about  gold  size.” 

To  decoration  Whistler  applied  his  scientific  method  of  painting, 
and  on  his  walls,  as  in  his  pictures,  black  was  often  the  basis.  Colour 
for  him  was  as  much  decoration  as  pattern  was  for  William  Morris,  and 
in  the  use  of  flat  colour  for  wall  decoration  Whistler  has  triumphed 
His  theory  of  interior  decoration,  though  people  do  not  realise  it,  has 
been  universally  adopted,  even  his  use  of  distemper,  in  which  he  was 
only  carrying  on  the  beautiful  tradition  of  whitewashing  walls.  Not 
only  can  this  simple  scheme  be  made  more  appropriate  as  a  background 
than  Morris’  hangings  and  stencillings,  but  it  has  the  virtue  of  utility 
and  cheapness,  which  Morris  for  ever  preached  but  never  practised.  In 
the  painting  of  pictures,  the  idea  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites  was  decoration — 
that  is,  convention.  Their  decoration  was  either  wilfully  or  ignorantly 
founded  on  the  realism  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  great  decorators 
of  Italy  were  the  realists  of  their  day,  their  realism,  except  in  the  case 
of  the  greatest,  Piero  della  Francesca,  is  now  regarded  as  convention, 
and  it  is  the  Pre-Raphaelites  who  stirred  up  these  dead  bones.  In 
France,  Puvis  de  Chavannes  developed  Italian  methods,  adapting  them 
to  modern  subjects  and  modern  wants,  retaining  the  convention  of 
flatness  and  simplicity.  Whistler  believed  that  a  portrait  or  a  Nocturne 
should  be  as  decorative  as  a  conventional  design ;  that,  by  the  arrange¬ 
ment  of  his  subjects,  and  by  their  colour,  they  should  be  made  decora¬ 
tive,  and  not  by  conventional  setting  and  conventional  lines.  He  also 
believed  that  walls  should  be  in  flat  tones  and  not  covered  with  pattern. 
Pictures  then  placed  upon  them  were  shown  properly  and  did  not 
struggle  with  the  pattern.  Lady  Archibald  Campbell  writes  us  a  few 
160  [1873 


PORTRAIT  OF  THOMAS  CARLYLE 
ARRANGEMENT  IN  GREY  AND  BLACK.  NO.  II 


OIL 

In  the  Corporation  Art  Gallery,  Glasgow 


(See  page  118) 


The  White  House 


lines  proving  that  he  could  make  people  understand  his  aims  when  they 
were  willing  to  learn  from  him  : 

“  The  fundamental  principles  of  decorative  art  with  which  Whistler 
impressed  me,  related  to  the  necessity  of  applying  scientific  methods 
to  the  treatment  of  all  decorative  work  ;  that  to  produce  harmonious 
effects  in  line  and  colour  grouping,  the  whole  plan  or  scheme  should 
have  to  be  thoroughly  thought  out  so  as  to  be  finished  before  it  was 
practically  begun.  I  think  he  proved  his  saying  to  be  true,  that  the 
fundamental  principles  of  decorative  art,  as  in  all  art,  are  based  on 
laws  as  exact  as  those  of  the  known  sciences.  He  concluded  that  what 
the  knowledge  of  a  fundamental  base  has  done  for  music,  a  similarly 
demonstrative  method  must  do  for  painting.  The  musical  vocabulary 
which  he  used  to  distinguish  his  creations  always  struck  me  as  singularly 
appropriate,  though  he  had  no  knowledge  of  music.” 

Before  the  Ruskin  case  came  into  court,  the  idea  of  opening  an 
atelier  for  students  occurred  to  Whistler,  and  it  was  because  the  painting- 
room  at  No.  2  Lindsey  Row  was  too  small  that  he  asked  Godwin  to 
build  the  house,  ever  since  known  as  the  White  House,  in  Tite  Street. 
Up  to  this  time  he  had  never  had  a  studio  in  Chelsea.  His  pictures 
had  been  painted  in  rooms  without  a  top-light,  partly,  no  doubt,  that  he 
might  paint  his  sitters  under  natural  conditions.  Even  in  his  later 
studios  of  the  Rue  Notre-Dame  des  Champs  in  Paris,  and  Fitzroy 
Street  in  London,  shades  and  screens  were  drawn  so  that  the  light 
might  come  in  as  from  an  ordinary  window.  He  was  trying  to  put 
the  figure  into  the  atmosphere  that  surrounded  it,  not  to  cut  it 
out  of  this  atmosphere.  But  he  needed  more  space  for  the  atelier , 
which  promised  success.  Among  artists,  there  were  always  a  few 
who  believed  in  Whistler.  Duranty  only  expressed  the  prevailing 
feeling  when,  in  the  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts  (1878),  he  referred  to 
Whistler’s  influence  on  British  painters  represented  in  the  Universal 
Exhibition. 

The  White  House,  low,  three-storeyed,  simple  in  ornament,  is  modest 
compared  to  many  houses  in  Tite  Street.  It  has  been  much  changed, 
but  the  general  plan  survives.  When  it  was  built,  it  shared  the  fate 
of  everything  associated  with  Whistler.  The  white  brick  of  the  walls, 
the  green  slate  of  the  roof,  the  stone  facings,  the  blue  door  and  wood¬ 
work  were  as  “  eccentric  ”  and  “  fantastic  ”  as  Whistler  himself  to 
1878]  L  161 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

art -critical  journalists.  To  architectural  papers  they  were  the  cause 
of  debate  and  calling  of  names.  To  the  Metropolitan  Board  of  Works 
the  simplicity  of  design  was  suspiciously  plain,  and  mouldings  in  specified 
places  were  insisted  upon  in  return  for  the  licence  to  build.  Discussion 
followed  discussion,  because  the  studio  was  the  most  important  feature 
of  the  interior  and  placed  at  the  top  of  the  house,  because  windows  and 
doors  were  made  where  they  were  wanted  “  and  not  with  Baker  Street 
regularity,”  because  Godwin  and  Whistler  liked  the  lovely  effect  of 
the  green  tiles  with  the  white  walls.  Harry  Quilter,  who  bought  the 
house  in  1879  and  altered  it,  probably  ruined  the  colour-scheme  which 
Whistler  had  arranged,  and  the  interior  decoration,  if  it  was  ever  carried 
out,  does  not  now  exist. 

Whistler’s  tenancy  of  the  Lindsey  Row  house  came  to  an  end  on 
June  25  (1878),  but  he  could  not  leave  it  in  time  for  the  new  tenants. 
He  did  not  get  out  of  the  studio  until  October.  It  was  surprising  that 
he  moved  at  all.  The  moment  was  one  of  debts  and  difficulties.  He 
was  alone.  His  mother  was  ill  at  Hastings,  he  had  just  broken  his 
engagement  with  Leyland’s  sister-in-law,*  and  he  had  quarrelled  with 
Leyland.  The  criticism  of  the  last  few  years  told  severely  upon  the 
sale  of  his  pictures-— upon  himself.  Howell,  who  had  “  started  cheques 
and  orders  flying  about  ”  and  attended  to  business  details,  kept  a  diary 
during  part  of  1877  and  all  of  1878.  To  look  through  it  is  to  share 
Whistler’s  indignation  that  so  great  an  artist  should  be  reduced  to  such 
shifts.  In  Kensington  and  St.  John’s  Wood  palaces,  Academicians 
could  not  turn  pictures  out  fast  enough  for  the  competing  crowd  ; 
Whistler  was  often  compelled  to  borrow  a  few  shillings.  There  are 
legends  of  his  taking  a  hansom  and  driving  to  find  somebody  to  lend 
him  half  a  crown  to  pay  for  it,  and  before  he  had  found  anybody  and 
could  get  rid  of  the  cab  the  fare  had  mounted  to  half  a  guinea.  Howell’s 
diary  shows  that  he  had  to  raise  money  before  he  could  lend  it  to 
Whistler.  Sometimes  larger  sums  than  he  could  manage  were  arranged 
by  Anderson  Rose,  Whistler’s  patron  and  solicitor.  As  “  ill  and 
worried,”  Howell  describes  Whistler  on  one  of  the  visits  to  Mr.  Rose, 
and  there  was  every  reason  he  should  be.  A  Mr.  Blott  figures  in  other 
transactions.  Whistler’s  letters  to  him  have  been  sold  and  published, 
and  it  would  be  useless  to  ignore  their  relations.  Money  for  the  White 
*Mrs.  Leyland  told  us  of  this  engagement.  We  know  nothing  more  about  it. 
162  [1878 


The  White  House 

House  had  to  be  obtained.  To  Mr.  Blott  he  gave  his  Carlyle  as  security 
for  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  agreeing  to  pay  interest,  offering  other 
pictures  as  security  if  a  sum  of  four  hundred  could  be  advanced. 
Cheques  were  protested,  writs  were  threatened.  The  pictures  he 
could  not  sell  went  wandering  about  as  hostages.  The  Mother  for 
awhile  was  with  Mrs.  Noseda,  the  Strand  printseller.  We  have  heard 
that  she  would  have  sold  it  for  a  hundred  pounds.  Mr.  Rawlinson, 
who  saw  it  either  there  or  at  Mr.  Graves’,  has  told  us  that  nobody 
could  have  bought  it  under  such  circumstances,  after  having  seen 
it  in  Whistler’s  bedroom,  where  it  had  hung  and  been  shown  by  him 
with  reverence.  When  Whistler  heard  that  Mrs.  Noseda  was  offering 
the  picture  for  this  price,  he  is  said  to  have  gone  at  once  to  remonstrate, 
and  by  his  vehemence  to  have  made  her  ill. 

One  man  who  helped  him  through  these  troubled  times  was 
Henry  Graves,  head  of  the  firm  in  Pall  Mall.  Graves,  introduced 
to  Whistler  by  Howell,  agreed  to  engrave  the  portrait  of  Carlyle  in 
mezzotint,  and  Howell  bought  the  copyright  of  the  engraving  from 
Whistler  for  eighty  pounds  and  six  proofs.  W.  Josey  was  commissioned 
to  make  the  plate.  Three  hundred  signed  proofs  of  a  first  state  were 
to  be  printed.  The  plate  would  not  stand  so  large  an  edition  ;  it  was 
steel-faced  and,  as  the  steel-facing  of  mezzotint  was  not  possible, 
turned  out  a  failure.  The  attempt  to  remove  the  steel  ruined  the 
ground,  and  Josey  had  to  be  called  in  to  go  over  it  again.  In  the  first 
state,  the  floor  was  perfectly  smooth,  but,  the  steel-facing  taken  off,  a 
spot  appeared  in  the  plate  which  never  could  be  got  out  and  remained 
there  through  the  edition.  After  every  seventy  proofs  printed,  Josey 
had  to  work  on  the  plate  and  bring  it  back,  as  well  as  he  could,  to  its 
original  condition.  Whistler  did  not  like  the  first  proofs  and  offered 
to  show  the  printers  how  to  do  them.  Mr.  A.  Graves  went  with  him  to 
Holdgate’s,  the  printer,  in  London  Street.  Whistler  brought  his  own 
ink,  put  on  an  apron,  inked  the  plate  as  he  would  an  etched  one,  while 
the  whole  shop  looked  on.  When  the  plate,  wiped  and  ready,  was  put 
through  the  press,  it  came  out  a  shadow,  the  ink  being  far  too  weak. 
Whistler  did  not  try  a  second  time.  Mr.  Graves  preserved  the  proof, 
writing  on  it  that  Whistler  pulled  it,  and  sold  it  for  three  guineas, 
to  whom  he  does  not  remember.  Eventually  Whistler  was  satisfied, 
for  Howell,  on  December  2,  1878,  gave  Whistler  what  he  calls  his  first 
1878]  163 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

proof,  and  the  diary  says  :  “  Whistler  and  the  Doctor  were  delighted.” 
It  is  also  recorded  in  the  diary  that  one  of  Whistler’s  six  proofs  was  sold 
to  Lord  Beaconsfield. 

The  print  of  the  Carlyle  was  very  successful.  At  Howell’s 
suggestion,  Graves  agreed  to  give  Whistler  a  thousand  pounds  for 
a  portrait  of  Disraeli,  and  the  copyright  :  a  plate  to  be  made  from  it 

also. 

Mr.  Alan  S.  Cole  says  Whistler  went  to  see  Disraeli : 

“  September  19  (1878).  Called  on  J.,  who  told  me  of  his  interview 
with  Lord  Beaconsfield  as  to  painting  a  portrait  of  him.  He  had  been 
down  at  Hughenden — saw  the  old  gentleman,  who,  however,  declined.” 

Whistler’s  version  was  : 

“Everything  was  most  wonderful.  We  were  the  two  artists 
together— recognising  each  other  at  a  glance !  ‘  If  I  sit  to  any  one, 

it  will  be  to  you,  Mr.  Whistler,’  were  Disraeli’s  last  words  as  he  left 
me  at  the  gate.  And  then  he  sat  to  Millais !  ” 

This  scheme  falling  through,  Graves  commissioned  Josey  to  en¬ 
grave  the  Mother ,  and  afterwards  the  Rosa  Gorier ,  painted  as  a 
commission  from  Howell.  Whistler  told  us  he  offered  the  portrait 
as  a  present  to  Howell,  who  declined  and  insisted  on  paying  a  hundred 
guineas  for  it,  the  amount  entered  in  Howell’s  diary  as  paid  to  Whistler 
on  September  9,  1878.  It  was  sold  to  Mr.  Canfield  in  1903  for  two 
thousand  pounds.  Though  these  mezzotints  were  successful  when 
published,  collectors  thought  as  little  of  them  as  they  did  at  the  time 
of  those  of  a  century  earlier,  and  for  years  proofs  signed  by  both 
artist  and  engraver  could  be  picked  up  for  less  than  the  published  price. 

After  the  two  pictures  had  been  engraved  by  Josey,  Howell 
deposited  in  the  same  way  three  of  the  Nocturnes  with  Graves : 
The  Falling  Rocket,  The  Fire  Wheel,  Old  Battersea  Bridge— Blue  and 
Gold ,  and  also  The  Fur  Jacket.  These  pictures  were  not  engraved. 
Whistler  had  not  a  minute  to  spare  from  legal  troubles  and  impatient 
creditors.  “  Poor  J.  turned  up  depressed— very  hard  up,  and  fearful 
of  getting  old,”  Mr.  Cole  wrote  in  his  diary  for  October  16,  1878. 
Whistler  had  reason  for  depression.  It  was  now  that  Howell’s  diary 
records  his  purchase  of  the  Irving  for  ten  pounds  and  a  sealskin  coat. 
There  is  nothing  more  tragic  in  the  story  of  Rembrandt’s  bankruptcy. 


164 


[1878 


PORTRAIT  OF  CICELY  HENRIETTA,  MISS  ALEXANDER 
HARMONY  IN  GREY  AND  GREEN 
In  the  possession  of  W.  C.  Alexander,  Esq. 


(See  page  120; 


The  Trial 


CHAPTER  XIX:  THE  TRIAL.  THE  YEAR  EIGHTEEN 
SEVENTY-EIGHT. 

The  case,  the  action  Whistler  v.  Ruskin,  was  heard  on  November  25-26, 

1878. 

John  Ruskin,  leader  of  taste,  critic  of  art,  prophet,  and  propounder 
of  the  gospel  of  “  the  Beautiful,”  led  not  only  a  devout  following, 
but  that  enormous  mass  of  the  public  which  believes  blindly  in 
Britons.  Whistler  knew  that  either  he  or  Ruskin  must  settle  the 
question  whether  an  artist  may  paint  what  he  wants  in  his  own  way, 
though  this  may  not  be  understood  by  the  patron,  the  critic,  the 
Academy,  or  the  real  British  judge,  the  man  in  the  street  ;  whether 
the  artist  should  rule  or  be  ruled  The  case  was,  Whistler  said, 
“  between  the  Brush  and  the  Pen.”  His  motives  were  Ignored,  the 
proceedings  made  a  jest,  and  the  verdict  treated  as  a  farce.  Few 
could,  or  do,  realise  that  he  was  in  earnest,  that  the  trial  was  a  defence 
of  his  principles,  and  the  verdict  a  justification  of  his  belief. 

At  the  time  Whistler  was  to  the  British  public  a  charlatan,  a 
mountebank.  Ruskin  was  to  the  People  a  preacher,  a  professor  of 
art.  Whistler  denied  the  right  of  Ruskin,  master  of  English  literature, 
populariser  of  pictures,  to  declare  himself  infallible,  as  he  did,  his  head 
turned  by  his  success  in  defence  of  the  Pre-Raphaelites  and  booming 
of  Turner.  As  to  his  discoveries,  Turner  was  a  full  R.A.  and  Giotto 
had  been  accepted  for  centuries  before  he  “  discovered  ”  them. 
Ruskin  did  but  popularise  them.  So  good  a  friend  of  Ruskin’s  as  Mr. 
W.  M.  Rossetti  says  that  he  was  “  substantially  wrong  in  the  Whistler 
matter,”  that  his  mind  broke  down  at  times,  and  that  his  mental  troubles 
began  in  i860.  His  conceit  and  his  vanity  can  be  explained  In  no 
other  way.  Unfortunately  he  lived  in  the  only  country  where  his 
arrogant  pretensions  would  have  been  countenanced,  though,  owing 
to  the  present  acceptance  of  England  and  everything  English,  he  has 
become  something  of  a  fetish  abroad,  now  that  he  is  exposed  and 
discredited  at  home.  He  was  rich,  he  was  a  University  ma  n,  he 
contributed  long  letters  to  the  Times.  He  was  a  typical  new  British 
patron  of  the  arts,  for  to  him  the  financial  side  of  connoisseurship 
was  of  the  greatest  importance— “  two  hundred  guineas  for  flinging 
a  pot  of  paint.”  Moreover,  he  was  a  master  of  English  ;  therefore 
1878]  165 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

he  could  commit  any  absurdity.  As  Whistler  said,  political  economists 
considered  him  a  great  art  critic,  and  artists  looked  upon  him  as  a 
great  political  economist.  Sometimes  we  have  wondered  if  there 
was  not  another  reason  for  Ruskin’s  venom.  He  never  appre¬ 
ciated  the  great  artists  of  the  world,  save  certain  Italians  recog¬ 
nised  long  before.  His  estimate  of  Velasquez  and  Rembrandt, 
and  his  comparison  between  Turner  and  Constable,  prove  how 
little  his  now  unheeded  sermons  were  ever  worth.  While  he 
failed  to  comprehend  Charles  Keene,  he  went  into  ecstasies  over 
Kate  Greenaway.  Whistler,  knowing  this,  may  have  laughed.  Mr. 
Collingwood  wrote  that,  long  before  the  trial,  Whistler  “  had  made 
overtures  to  the  great  critic  through  Mr.  Swinburne,  the  poet ;  but 
he  had  not  been  taken  seriously.”  It  is  certain  Ruskin  was  not  taken 
seriously  by  the  great  artist.  Swinburne  suggested  a  meeting  in  a 
letter  of  August  n,  1865,  to  which  we  have  referred  (published  in 
the  Library  Edition  of  the  Works  of  John  Ruskin),  but  in  such  words 
that  we  gather  there  must  have  been  some  sort  of  misunderstanding 
already  between  Whistler  and  Ruskin.  Swinburne  wanted  to  take 
Ruskin  to  the  studio  and  represented  Whistler  as  desirous  of  meeting 
him.  It  is  likely  that  Whistler,  knowing  Ruskin’s  power  in  the  Press, 
was  willing  to  be  written  about  by  him,  and  also  that)  Ruskin  cherished 
whatever  reason  for  dislike  he  had  for  Whistler. 

Anderson  Rose  prepared  the  case,  and  we  know  the  pains  and  trouble 
Whistler  took.  Judge  Parry  has  shown  us  letters  which  prove  this. 
In  one  to  Rose,  Whistler  warned  him  there  was  no  use  in  making 
him  out  a  popular  painter,  but  bade  him  show  the  jury  from  the  start 
that  the  Academy  and  Academicians  were  against  him.  He  thought, 
at  first,  that  the  artists  would  be  on  his  side  and  would  unite  with  him 
to  drive  the  false  prophet  out  of  the  temple.  But  Ruskin  the  critic 
was  to  them  more  powerful  than  Whistler  the  painter,  and  when 
the  time  came  they  sneaked  away,  all  except  Albert  Moore.  Besides, 
there  was  the  unspoken  hope  that  the  Yankee  would  lose.  Whistler 
told  us  “  they  all  hoped  they  could  drive  me  out  of  the  country,  or 
kill  me  !  And  if  I  hadn’t  had  the  constitution  of  a  Government  mule, 
they  would  !  ” 

Charles  Keene,  whom  Whistler  considered  the  greatest  English 
artist  since  Hogarth,  could  write  on  November  24,  1878  : 

166  [1878 


The  Trial 


“  Whistler’s  case  against  Ruskin  comes  off,  I  believe,  on  Monday. 
He  wants  to  subpoena  me  as  a  witness  as  to  whether  he  is  (as  Ruskin  says) 
an  imposter  or  not.  I  told  him  I  should  be  glad  to  record  my  opinion, 
but  begged  him  to  do  without  me  if  he  could.  They  say  it  will  most 
likely  be  settled  on  the  point  of  law  without  going  into  evidence,  but 
if  the  evidence  is  adduced,  it  will  be  the  greatest  lark  that  has  been 
known  for  a  long  time  in  the  courts.” 

Keene  did  not  dare  to  stand  up  publicly  for  Whistler  and  for  art, 
and  the  bitterness  is  in  those  last  words — “  a  lark  !  ” 

In  the  Exchequer  Division  at  Westminster  the  action  for  libel, 
in  which  “  Mr.  James  Abbott  McNeill  Whistler,  an  artist,  seeks  to 
recover  damages  against  Mr.  John  Ruskin,  the  well-known  author 
and  art  critic,”  was  brought  up  before  Baron  Huddleston  and  a  special 
jury.  Our  account  is  compiled  chiefly  from  the  reports  published  in 
the  ‘limes  and  the  Daily  News,  November  26  and  27,  1878,  from 
The  Gentle  Art,  and  from  what  Whistler,  Mr.  Rossetti,  Armstrong, 
Mr.  Graves,  and  others  who  were  present  have  told  us.  According 
to  Lady  Burne-Jones,  Ruskin  had  been  delighted  at  the  prospect  of 
the  trial  : 

“  It’s  nuts  and  nectar  to  me,  the  notion  of  having  to  answer  for 
myself  in  court,  and  the  whole  thing  will  enable  me  to  assert  some 
principles  of  art  economy  which  I’ve  never  got  into  the  public’s  head 
by  writing  :  but  may  get  sent  over  all  the  world  vividly  in  a  newspaper 
report  or  two.  Meantime  Vve  heard  nothing  of  the  matter  yet,  and 
am  only  afraid  the  fellow  will  be  better  advised.” 

Nuts  and  nectar  turned  into  gall  and  vinegar.  In  the  early  winter 
of  1878  rumours  of  his  ill-health  reached  the  papers.  Lady  Burne- 
Jones  adds  that,  when  the  action  was  brought,  “  although  he  had 
quite  recovered  from  his  illness,  he  was  not  allowed  to  appear  ”~~a 
curious  sort  of  recovery.  But  he  was  well  enough  on  the  morning 
of  the  26th  to  write  to  Charles  Eliot  Norton  that  “  to-day  I  believe 
the  comic  Whistler  lawsuit  is  to  be  decided.” 

The  case  excited  great  interest  and  the  court  was  crowded,  even  the 
passages  being  filled.  Mr.  Serjeant  Parry  and  Mr.  Petheram  were 
counsel  for  the  plaintiff,  and  the  Attorney-General  (Sir  John  Holker) 
and  Mr.  Bowen  for  the  defendant.  Mr.  Serjeant  Parry  opened  the 
case  for  Whistler,  “  who  has  followed  the  profession  of  an  artist  for 
1878]  167 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

many  years,  while  Mr.  Ruskin  is  a  gentleman  well  known  to  all  of  us, 
and  holding  perhaps  the  highest  position  in  Europe  or  America  as  an 
art  critic.  Some  of  his  works  are  destined  to  immortality,  and  it  is 
the  more  surprising,  therefore,  that  a  gentleman  holding  such  a 
position  could  traduce  another  in  a  way  that  would  lead  that  other 
to  come  into  a  court  of  law  to  ask  for  damages.  The  jury,  after  hearing 
the  case,  will  come  to  the  conclusion  that  a  great  injustice  has  been 
done.  Mr.  Whistler,  in  the  United  States,  has  earned  a  reputation 
as  a  painter  and  an  artist.  He  is  not  merely  a  painter,  but  has  like¬ 
wise  distinguished  himself  in  the  capacity  of  etcher,  achieving  con¬ 
siderable  honours  in  that  department  of  art.  He  has  been  an  unwearied 
worker  in  his  profession,  always  desiring  to  succeed,  and  if  he  had 
formed  an  erroneous  opinion,  he  should  not  have  been  treated  with 
contempt  and  ridicule.  Mr.  Ruskin  edits  a  publication  called  Fors 
Clavigera,  that  has  a  large  circulation  among  artists  and  art  patrons. 
In  the  July  number  of  1877  appeared  a  criticism  of  the  pictures  in  the 
Grosvenor,  containing  the  paragraph  which  is  the  defamatory  matter 
complained  of.  Sir  Coutts  Lindsay  is  described  as  an  amateur,  both 
in  art  and  shopkeeping,  who  must  take  up  one  business  or  the  other. 
Mannerisms  and  errors  are  pointed  out  in  the  work  of  Burne-Jones, 
but  whatever  their  extent,  his  pictures  ‘  are  never  affected  or  indolent. 
The  work  is  natural  to  the  painter,  however  strange  to  us,  wrought 
with  the  utmost  conscience  and  care,  however  far,  to  his  or  our  desire, 
the  result  may  seem  to  be  incomplete.  Scarcely  so  much  can  be  said 
for  any  other  pictures  of  the  modern  schools.  Their  eccentricities 
are  almost  always  in  some  degree  forced,  and  their  imperfections 
gratuitously,  if  not  impertinently,  indulged.  For  Mr.  Whistler’s 
own  sake,  no  less  than  for  the  protection  of  the  purchaser,  Sir  Coutts 
Lindsay  ought  not  to  have  admitted  works  into  the  gallery  in  which 
the  ill-educated  conceit  of  the  artist  so  nearly  approaches  the  aspect 
of  wilful  imposture.  I  have  seen  and  heard  much  of  cockney  impudence 
before  now,  but  never  expected  to  hear  a  coxcomb  ask  two  hundred 
guineas  for  flinging  a  pot  of  paint  in  the  public’s  face.’  Mr.  Ruskin 
pleaded  that  the  alleged  libel  was  privileged  as  being  a  fair  and  bond 
fide  criticism  upon  a  painting  which  the  plaintiff  had  exposed  to  public 
view.  But  the  terms  in  which  Mr.  Ruskin  has  spoken  of  the  plaintiff 
are  unfair  and  ungentlemanly,  and  are  calculated  to  do,  and  have  done 
168  [187  8 


PORTRAIT  OF  F.  R.  LEYLAND 
ARRANGEMENT  IN  BLACK 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 
[See  page  123) 


The  Trial 

him,  considerable  injury,  and  it  will  be  for  the  jury  to  say  what  damages 
the  plaintiff  is  entitled  to.” 

Whistler  was  the  first  witness  called.  He  said  :  “I  studied  in 
Paris  with  Du  Maurier,  Poynter,  Armstrong.  I  was  awarded  a  gold 
medal  at  The  Hague.  .  .  .  1ST y  etchings  are  in  the  British  h/luseum 
and  Windsor  Castle  collections.  I  exhibited  eight  pictures  at  the 
Grosvenor  Gallery  in  the  summer  of  1877.  No  pictures  were  exhibited 
there  save  on  invitation.  I  was  invited  by  Sir  Coutts  Lindsay  to 
exhibit.  The  first  was  a  Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold-—  “The  Falling 
Rocket.  The  second,  a  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Silver  [since  called  Blue 
and  Gold— Old  Battersea  Bridge ].  The  third,  a  Nocturne  in  Blue 
and  Gold ,  belonging  to  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Percy  Wyndham.  The  fourth, 
a  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Silver ,  belonging  to  Mrs.  Leyland.  The  fifth, 
an  Arrangement  in  Black— Irving  as  Philip  II.  of  Spain.  The  sixth, 
a  Harmony  in  Amber  and  Black.  The  seventh,  an  Arrangement  in 
Brown.  In  addition  to  these,  there  was  a  portrait  of  Mr.  Carlyle. 
That  portrait  was  painted  from  sittings  Mr.  Carlyle  gave  me.  It 
has  since  been  engraved,  and  the  artist’s  proofs  were  all  subscribed 
for.  The  Nocturnes,  all  but  two,  were  sold  before  they  went  to  the 
Grosvenor  Gallery.  One  of  them  was  sold  to  the  Hon.  Percy  Wyndham 
for  two  hundred  guineas — the  one  in  Blue  and  Gold.  One  I  sent  to 
Mr.  Graham  in  lieu  of  a  former  commission,  the  amount  of  which 
was  a  hundred  and  fifty  guineas.  A  third  one,  Blue  and  Silver ,  I 
presented  to  Mrs.  Leyland.  1  he  one  that  was  for  sale  was  in  Black 
and  Gold— The  Falling  Rocket .” 

Curiously,  the  only  one  for  sale  was  pounced  on  by  Ruskin.  The 
coxcomb  was  trying  to  get  two  hundred  guineas. 

Asked  whether,  since  the  publication  of  the  criticism,  he  had  sold 
a  Nocturne,  Whistler  answered  :  “  Not  by  any  means  at  the  same 
price  as  before.” 

The  portraits  of  Irving  and  Carlyle  were  produced  in  court,  and 
he  is  said  to  have  described  the  Irving  as  “  a  large  impression — a  sketch  ; 
it  was  not  intended  as  a  finished  picture.”  We  do  not  believe  he  said 
anything  of  the  sort. 

He  was  then  asked  for  his  definition  of  a  Nocturne  :  “I  have, 
perhaps,  meant  rather  to  indicate  an  artistic  interest  alone  in  the 
work,  divesting  the  picture  from  any  outside  sort  of  interest  which 

1878]  i69 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

might  have  been  otherwise  attached  to  it.  It  is  an  arrangement  of 
line,  form,  and  colour  first,  and  I  make  use  of  any  incident  of  it  which 
shall  bring  about  a  symmetrical  result.  Among  my  works  are  some 
night  pieces ;  and  I  have  chosen  the  word  Nocturne  because  it 
generalises  and  simplifies  the  whole  set  of  them.” 

The  Falling  Rocket ,  though  it  is  difficult  here  to  follow  the 
case,  was  evidently  produced  at  this  point  upside  down  ;  Whistler, 
describing  it  as  a  night  piece,  said  it  represented  the  fireworks  at 
Cremorne. 

Attorney-General :  “Not  a  view  of  Cremorne  ?  ” 

Whistler:  “  If  it  were  called  a  view  of  Cremorne,  it  would  certainly 
bring  about  nothing  but  disappointment  on  the  part  of  the  beholders. 
(Laughter.)  It  is  an  artistic  arrangement.” 

Attorney-General :  “  Why  do  you  call  Mr.  Irving  an  Arrangement  in 
Black  P  ”  (Laughter.) 

The  judge  interposed,  though  in  jest,  for  there  was  more  laughter, 
and  explained  that  the  picture,  not  Mr.  Irving,  was  the  Arrangement. 

Whistler  :  “All  these  works  are  impressions  of  my  own.  I  make 
them  my  study.  I  suppose  them  to  appeal  to  none  but  those  who 
may  understand  the  technical  matter.” 

And  he  added  that  it  would  be  possible  to  see  the  pictures  in 
Westminster  Palace  Hotel  close  by,  where  he  had  placed  them 
for  the  purpose. 

Attorney-General :  “  I  suppose  you  are  willing  to  admit  that  your 
pictures  exhibit  some  eccentricities.  You  have  been  told  that  over 
and  over  again  ?  ” 

Whistler :  “  Yes,  very  often.”  (Laughter.) 

Attorney-General:  “You  send  them  to  the  gallery  to  invite 
the  admiration  of  the  public  ?  ” 

Whistler  :  “  That  would  be  such  vast  absurdity  on  my  part 

that  I  don’t  think  I  could.”  (Laughter.) 

Attorney-General :  “  Can  you  tell  me  how  long  it  took  you  to  knock 
off  that  Nocturne  ?  ” 

Whistler :  “I  beg  your  pardon  ?  ”  (Laughter.) 

Attorney-General:  “I  am  afraid  that  I  am  using  a  term  that 
applies  rather  perhaps  to  my  own  work.  ...” 

Whistler  :  .  .  .  “  Let  us  say  then,  how  long  did  I  take  to  ‘  knock 

170  [1878 


The  Trial 

off  ’—I  think  that  is  it-to  knock  off  that  Nocturne ;  well,  as  well  as 
I  remember,  about  a  day.  ...  I  may  have  still  put  a  few  more  touches 
to  it  the  next  day  if  the  painting  were  not  dry.  I  had  better  say, 

then,  that  I  was  two  days  at  work  on  it.”  .  * 

Attorney-General:  “The  labour  of  two  days,  then,  is  that  for 

which  you  ask  two  hundred  guineas  ?  ” 

Whistler  :  “  No  ;  I  ask  it  for  the  knowledge  of  a  lifetime.’ 
Attorney-General :  “You  don’t  approve  of  criticism  ? 

Whistler:  “I  should  not  disapprove  in  any  way  of  technical 
criticism  by  a  man  whose  life  is  passed  in  the  practice  of  the  science 
which  he  criticises ;  but  for  the  opinion  of  a  man  whose  life  is  not  so 
passed,  I  would  have  as  little  regard  as  you  would  if  he  expressed  an 

opinion  on  law.”  „  yf 

Attorney-General:  “  You  expect  to  be  criticised  ? 

Whistler:  “Yes,  certainly;  and  I  do  not  expect  to  be  affected 
by  it  until  it  comes  to  be  a  case  of  this  kind.” 

The  Nocturne,  the  Blue  and  Silver ,  was  then  produced. 

Whistler  :  “  It  represents  Battersea  Bridge  by  moonlight.” 

The  Judge  :  “  Is  this  part  of  the  picture  at  the  top  Old  Battersea 
Bridge  ?  Are  those  figures  on  the  top  of  the  bridge  intended  for 
people  ?  ” 

Whistler  :  “  They  are  just  what  you  like.” 

The  Judge  :  “  That  is  a  barge  beneath  ?  ” 

Whistler  :  “  Yes,  I  am  very  much  flattered  at  your  seeing  that. 
The  picture  is  simply  a  representation  of  moonlight.  My  whole 
scheme  was  only  to  bring  about  a  certain  harmony  of  colour.  ^ 
The  Judge  :  “  How  long  did  it  take  you  to  paint  that  picture  ? 
Whistler  :  “  I  completed  the  work  in  one  day,  after  having  arranged 
the  idea  in  my  mind.”  * 

“  The  court  adjourned,  and  the  jury  went  to  see  the  pictures  at 
the  Westminster  Palace  Hotel.  When,  on  their  return,  the  Nocturne 
*  This  was  the  picture  that  then  belonged  to  Mr.  Graham,  that  some  years 
after  at  his  sale  at  Christie’s  was  received  with  hisses,  that  was  then  purchased 
by  Mr.  Robert  H.  C.  Harrison  for  sixty  pounds,  and  that  at  the  close  of  the 
London  Whistler  Memorial  Exhibition  was  bought  for  two  thousand  guineas 
by  the  National  Arts  Collection  Fund,  presented  to  the  nation,  and  hung 
in  the  National  Gallery.  See  Chapter  XXIX. 

1878]  171 


James  McNeill  Whistler 


in  Black  and  Gold —  The  Falling  Rocket,  was  produced,  the  Attorney- 
General  asked  : 

“  How  long  did  it  take  you  to  paint  that  ?  ” 

Whistler  :  “  One  whole  day  and  part  of  another.” 

Attorney-General :  “What  is  the  peculiar  beauty  of  that 
picture  ?  ” 

W  histler :  “  It  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  explain  to  you, 
I  am  afraid,  although  I  dare  say  I  could  to  a  sympathetic  ear.” 

Attorney-General  :  “Do  you  not  think  that  anybody  looking  at  the 
picture  might  fairly  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  had  no  particular 
beauty  ?  ” 

Whistler  :  “  I  have  strong  evidence  that  Mr.  Ruskin  did  come  to 
that  conclusion.” 

Attorney-General :  “  Do  you  think  it  fair  that  Mr.  Ruskin  should 
come  to  that  conclusion  ?  ” 

Whistler  :  “  What  might  be  fair  to  Mr.  Ruskin,  I  cannot  answer. 
No  artist  of  culture  would  come  to  that  conclusion. 

Attorney-General :  “Do  you  offer  that  picture  to  the  public  as 
one  of  particular  beauty,  fairly  worth  two  hundred  guineas  ?  ” 

Whistler  :  I  offer  it  as  a  work  that  I  have  conscientiously  executed 
and  that  I  think  worth  the  money.  I  would  hold  my  reputation  upon 
this,  as  I  would  upon  any  of  my  other  works.” 

Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  was  the  next  witness.  He  was  Ruskin ’s  friend 
as  well  as  Whistler’s,  and  the  position  was  not  pleasant.  But,  he  has 
written  us,  he  was  “  compelled  to  act,  willy-nilly,  in  opposition  to 
Ruskin’s  interest  in  the  action.” 

Rossetti  :  “  I  consider  the  Blue  and  Silver  an  artistic  and  beautiful 
representation  of  a  pale  but  bright  moonlight.  I  admire  Mr.  Whistler’s 
pictures,  but  not  without  exception.  I  appreciate  the  meaning  of  the 
titles.  The  Falling  Rocket  is  not  one  of  the  pictures  I  admire.” 

Attorney-General ;  “  Is  it  a  gem  ?”  (Laughter.) 

Rossetti :  “No.” 

Attorney-General :  “  Is  it  an  exquisite  painting  ?  ” 

Rossetti:  “No.” 


Attorney-General :  “  Is  it  very  beautiful  ?  ” 
Rossetti:  “No.” 

Attorney-General :  “  Is  it  a  work  of  art  ?  ” 


1/2 


[1878 


PORTRAIT  OF  MRS.  F.  R.  LEYLAND 
SYMPHONY  IN  FLESH-COLOUR  AND  PINK 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  Mrs.  F.  R.  Leyland 


( See  pjge  125) 


The  Trial 


Rossetti:  “  Yes,  it  is.”  „ 

Attorney-General :  “  Is  it  worth  two  hundred  guineas  ? 

Rossetti :  “  Yes.”  . 

Albert  Moore  said  that  Whistler’s  pictures  were  beautiful  works 

of  art,  and  that  no  other  painter  could  have  succeeded  in  them.  1  he 
Black  and  Gold  he  looked  upon  as  simply  marvellous,  the  most  com 
summate  art.  Asked  if  there  was  eccentricity  in  the  picture,  he  said 

he  should  call  it  originality.  .  , 

W.  G.  Wills  testified  to  the  knowledge  shown  in  the  pictures  ;  they 

were  the  works  of  a  man  of  genius.  . 

Mr.  Algernon  Graves  was  in  court  to  give  evidence  to  the  popularity 
of  the  Carlyle.  As  the  picture  was  not  catalogued  when  exhibited  at 
the  Grosvenor,  Baron  Huddleston  ruled  that  there  was  no  proof  of 
its  having  been  exhibited  in  1877,  and  he  was  not  called.  These 
were  the  only  witnesses  for  Whistler,  though  we  have  seen  a  letter 
he  wrote  to  Anderson  Rose  suggesting  Haweis,  who  had  preached 
“  a  poem  of  praise  ”  about  The  Peacock  Room,  and  Prince  1  eck,  who 
might  be  asked  to  swear  that  he  “  thought  it  a  great  piece  of  art.  e 
have  also  seen  the  draft  of  a  letter  to  Tissot  upon  whose  aid  he  relied. 

The  Attorney-General  submitted  there  was  no  case.  _  But  Baron 
Huddleston  could  not  deny  that  the  criticism  held  Whistler’s  work 
up  to  ridicule  and  contempt ;  that  so  far  it  was  libellous,  and  must, 
therefore,  go  to  the  jury.  It  was  for  the  Attorney-General  to  prove 

it  fair  and  honest  criticism.  . 

The  Attorney-General’s  address  to  the  jury  began  with  praise  ot 
Ruskin,  it  went  on  with  ridicule  of  the  testimony  for  the  plaintiff,  it 
finished  with  contempt  for  Whistler  and  his  work. 

“  The  Nocturnes  were  not  worthy  the  name  of  great  works  of  art. 
He  had  that  morning  looked  into  the  dictionary  for  the  meaning  of 
coxcomb,  and  found  that  the  word  carried  the  old  idea  of  the  licensed 
jester  who  had  a  cap  on  his  head  with  a  cock’s  comb  in  it.  If  that  were 
the  true  definition,  Mr.  Whistler  should  not  complain,  because  his 
pictures  were  capital  jests  which  had  afforded  much  amusement  to  the 
public.  He  said,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that  if  Mr.  Whistler 
founded  his  reputation  on  the  pictures  he  had  shown  in  the  Grosvenor 
Gallery,  the  Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold ,  the  Nocturne  tn  Blue  and 
Silver,  his  Arrangement  of  Irving  in  Black,  his  representation  of  the 
1878]  173 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Ladies  in  Brown ,  and  his  Symphonies  in  Grey  and  Yellow ,  he  was  a  mere 
pretender  to  the  art  of  painting.” 

In  Ruskin’s  absence,  Burne-Jones  was  the  first  witness  called  for 
the  defence.  Lady  Burne-Jones  says,  in  her  Memorials  of  Edward 
Burne-Jones,  that  on  November  2,  Ruskin  had  written  to  him  : 

“  1  gave  your  name  to  the  blessed  lawyer,  as  chief  of  men  to  whom 
they  might  refer  for  anything  which,  in  their  wisdom,  they  can’t 
discern  unaided  concerning  me.” 

She  adds  that  for  her  husband  :  “  Few  positions  could  have  been 
more  annoying  or  difficult  for  the  paragraph  containing  the  sentence 
in  question-one  of  Ruskin’s  severest  condemnations— was  practically 
a  comparison  between  Mr.  Whistler’s  work  and  Edward’s  own.  But 
the  subject  covered  so  much  wider  ground  than  any  personality  that 
Edward  was  finally  able  to  put  this  thought  aside,  and  did  with  calmness 
what  he  had  undertaken  to  do,  namely— endorse  Ruskin’s  criticism  that 
good  workmanship  was  essential  to  a  good  picture.” 

Mr.  Walter  Crane  states  in  his  Reminiscences  that  he  met  Burne- 
Jones  at  dinner  at  Leyland’s  not  long  before  the  trial ;  and  that  then 
Burne-Jones  would  not  see  Whistler’s  merit  as  an  artist.  “  He  seemed 
to  think  there  was  only  one  right  way  of  painting.  .  .  .  Under  the 

circumstances  he  could  hardly  afford  to  allow  any  credit  to 

Whistler.” 

In  court  Burne-Jones  temporised.  He  admitted  Whistler’s  art, 
but  regretted  the  want  of  finish  in  Whistler’s  pictures  ;  so  strengthen¬ 
ing  the  impression  of  the  laziness,  levity,  or  incompetence  of  Whistler. 
In  his  “  deliberate  judgment  ”  Mrs.  Leyland’s  Blue  and  Silver  was 

a  work  of  art,  but  a  very  incomplete  one.  “  It  did  not  show  the 

finish  of  a  complete  work  of  art,”  yet  “  it  is  masterly.  Neither  in 
composition,  detail,  nor  form  has  the  picture  any  quality  whatever, 
but  in  colour  it  has  a  very  fine  quality.  .  .  .  Blue  and  Silver — Old 
Battersea  Bridge,  in  colour  is  even  better  than  the  other.  It  is  more 
formless,  it  is  bewildering  in  form.  As  to  composition  and  detail, 
there  is  none  whatever.  It  has  no  finish.  I  do  not  think  Mr.  Whistler 
intended  it  to  be  regarded  as  a  finished  picture.” 

Mr.  Bowen:  ‘‘Now,  take  the  Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold— The 
Falling  Rocket,  is  that,  in  your  opinion,  a  work  of  art  ?  ” 

Burne-Jones  :  “  No,  I  cannot  say  that  it  is.  It  is  only  one  of  a 
174  [1878 


The  Trial 

thousand  failures  that  artists  have  made  in  their  efforts  to  paint 

m8*Mr.  Bowen  :  “Is  that  picture  in  your  judgment  worth  two  hundred 

^Burne-Jones:  “No,  I  cannot  say  it  is,  seeing  how  much  careful 
work  men  do  for  much  less.  Mr.  Whistler  gave  infinite  promise  at 
first  but  I  do  not  think  he  has  fulfilled  it.  I  think  he  has  evaded 
the  great  difficulty  of  painting,  and  has  not  tested  his  powers  by  carrying 
it  out  The  difficulties  in  painting  increase  daily  as  the  work  pro¬ 
gresses,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  so  many  of  us  fail.  We  are  none 
of  us  perfect.  The  danger  is  this,  that  if  unfinished  pictures  become 
common,  we  shall  arrive  at  a  stage  of  mere  manufacture  and  the  ar 

of  the  country  will  be  degraded.”  .  u 

Mr  Frith,  R.A.,  was  next  called.  Truly,  Ruskin  found  himself 
with  strange  supporters.  Frith  was  chosen,  we  have  been  told,  because 
Ruskin  wanted  some  one  who  could  not  be  thought  biased  in  his  favour. 
Mr.  Bowen:  “  Are  the  pictures  works  of  art  ?  ” 

Frith  :  “  I  should  say  not.”  . 

Mr.  Bowen  :  “  Is  the  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Gold  a  serious  work 


of  art  ?  ”  .  .  .  i  j  i 

Frith  :  “  Not  to  me.  It  is  not  worth,  in  my  opinion,  two  hundred 

guineas.  Old  Battersea  Bridge  does  not  convey  the  impression  of 
moonlight  to  me  in  the  slightest  degree.  The  colour  does  not  represent 
any  more  than  you  could  get  from  a  bit  of  wallpaper  or  silk 

In  cross-examination  he  contradicted  himself,  and  said  that  he 
thought  Mr.  Whistler  had  “  very  great  power  as  an  artist.” 

Ruskin’s  final  supporter  was  Tom  Taylor,  critic  of  the  .  imes. 
No,  he  said,  the  Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold  was  not  a  good  picture, 
and,  to  prove  it,  he  read  his  own  criticism  in  the  Times,  and  his  assertion 
there  that  the  Nocturnes  were  worth  doing  because  they  were  the  only 

things  that  Whistler  could  do.  _ 

A  portrait  by  Titian  was  then  shown,  in  order  to  explain  Burne- 
Jones’  idea  of  finish,  and  the  jury,  mistaking  it  for  a  Whistler,  would 

have  none  of  it.  ...  t>  i  ■ 

Mr.  Bowen,  in  summing  up  the  case,  said  that  all  that  Ruskin 

had  done  was  to  express  an  opinion  on  Whistler’s  pictures— an  opinion 
to  which  he  adhered.  This  was  about  all  he  could  say  except,  in 
1878]  175 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

conclusion,  to  appeal  to  the  jury.  There  was  no  defence.  Mr.  Serjeant 
Parry,  in  his  reply,  pointed  out  that  they  had  not  dared  to  ask  if 
Whistler  deserved  to  be  stigmatised  as  a  wilful  imposter,  and  that  even 
if  Ruskin  had  not  been  well  enough  to  attend  the  court  “  he  might 
have  been  examined  before  a  commission.  His  decree  has  gone  forth 
that  Mr.  Whistler’s  pictures  were  worthless.  He  has  not  supported 
that  by  evidence.  He  has  not  condescended  to  give  reasons  for  the 
view  he  has  taken,  he  has  treated  us  with  contempt,  as  he  treated 
Mr.  Whistler.  He  has  said  :  1  I,  Mr.  Ruskin,  seated  on  my  throne 
of  art,  say  what  I  please  and  expect  all  the  world  to  agree  with  me.’ 
Mr.  Ruskin  is  great  as  a  writer,  but  not  as  a  man  ;  as  a  man  he  has 
degraded  himself.  His  tone  in  writing  the  article  is  personal  and 
malicious.  Mr.  Ruskin’s  criticism  of  Mr.  Whistler’s  pictures  is  almost 
exclusively  in  the  nature  of  a  personal  attack,  a  pretended  criticism 
of  art  which  is  really  a  criticism  upon  the  man  himself,  and  calculated 
to  injure  him.  It  was  written  recklessly,  and  for  the  purpose  of  holding 
him  up  to  ridicule  and  contempt.  Mr.  Ruskin  has  gone  out  of  his 
way  to  attack  Mr.  Whistler  personally,  and  must  answer  for  the  con¬ 
sequences  of  having  written  a  damnatory  attack  upon  the  painter. 
This  is  what  is  called  pungent  criticism,  stinging  criticism,  but  it 
is  defamatory,  and  I  hope  the  jury  will  mark  their  disapproval  by 
their  verdict.” 

The  Judge  pointed  out  that  “  there  are  certain  words  by  Mr.  Ruskin, 
about  which  I  should  think  no  one  would  entertain  a  doubt :  those  words 
amount  to  a  libel.  The  critic  should  confine  himself  to  criticism  and 
not  make  it  a  veil  for  personal  censure  or  for  showing  his  power.  The 
question  for  the  jury  is,  did  Mr.  Whistler’s  ideas  of  art  justify  the 
language  used  by  Mr.  Ruskin  ?  And  the  further  question  is  whether 
the  insult  offered— -if  insult  there  has  been— is  of  such  a  gross  character 
as  to  call  for  substantial  damages  ?  Whether  it  is  a  case  for  merely 
contemptuous  damages  to  the  extent  of  a  farthing,  or  something  of 
that  sort,  indicating  that  it  is  one  which  ought  never  to  have  been 
brought  into  court,  and  in  which  no  pecuniary  damage  has  been 
sustained  ;  or  whether  the  case  is  one  which  calls  for  damages  in  some 
small  sum  as  indicating  the  opinion  of  the  jury  that  the  offender  has 
gone  beyond  the  strict  letter  of  the  law.” 

After  an  hour’s  deliberation,  the  jury  gave  their  verdict  for  the 
J76  [1878 


PORTRAIT  OF  MISS  LEYLAND 

PASTEL 

In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  Mrs.  F.  R.  Leyland 


( Seepage.  124) 


The  Trial 

plaintiff— damages  one  farthing.  The  judge  emphasised  his  contempt 
by  giving  judgment  for  the  plaintiff  without  costs ;  that  is,  both  sides 

had  to  pay.  .  .  vs7 

It  is  said  that  Whistler  wore  the  farthing  on  hxs  watch-chain.  We 
never  saw  it,  we  never  knew  him  to  wear  a  watch-chain.  But  he 
made  a  drawing  of  the  farthing  for  The  Gentle  Art. 

“The  whole  thing  was  a  hateful  affair,”  Burne-Jones  wrote  to 
Rossetti,  and  many  agreed  with  him,  though  for  other  reasons.  The 
Times,  the  Spectator ,  and  the  Portfolio  pronounced  the  verdict  satis¬ 
factory  to  neither  party,  virtually  a  censure  upon  both,  who  alike 
would  suffer  heavily.  Mr.  Graves,  who  watched  the  trial  without 
the  responsibility  he  was  disposed  to  meet,  says  • 

“  I  have  always  felt  that,  had  the  plaintiff’s  counsel  impressed  upon 
the  jury  that  Mr.  Ruskin  had  mentioned  the  price  asked  for  the  picture, 
a  matter  that  has  always  been  outside  the  critic’s  province,  as  well 
as  criticising  them  as  works  of  art,  the  result  to  Mr.  Whistler  would 
have  been  more  in  his  favour.  Mr.  Tom  Taylor  was  never  asked 
whether  he  had  ever  criticised  the  price  as  well  as  the  quality.” 

Armstrong  has  told  us  of  the  suppression,  of  important  letters  : 
“  A  little  while  before  the  trial  I  met  Whistler  one  evening  at  the 
Arts  Club,  and  he  told  me  of  his  hopes  of  a  favourable  result.  My 
sympathies  were  entirely  on  his  side.  He  assured  me  that  he 
had  evidence,  which  I  believe  could  not  fail  to  be  effective,  in  the  shape 
of  letters  from  Leighton,  P.R.A. ;  Burton,  Director  of  the  National 
Gallery ;  and  Poynter,  R.A.,  then  Director  for  Art  at  S.K.,  speaking 
highly  of  the  moonlight  pictures.  These  letters  seemed  to  me  most 
important  (I  never  read  them),  for  they  were  from  people  in  official 
positions,  whose  good  words  would  have  weight  with  the  British 
jurymen.  Nothing  was  said  about  these  letters  in  the  newspaper 
reports,  and  I  asked  Jimmie  the  reason  for  this  omission  of  the  strongest 
evidence  on  his  side.  He  told  me  that  the  writers  of  the  letters  had 
objected  to  their  being  put  in,  and  so  he  had  refrained  from  using 
them,  and  without  the  personal  testimony  of  the  writers  they  would 
not  have  been  accepted  as  evidence  in  court.  After  the  trial 
I  saw  Holker  and  asked  him  if  he  had  been  helping  to  smirch  any  more 
poor  artists.  He  replied  that  he  was  bound  to  do  the  best  he  could 
for  his  client.  I  told  him  he  would  never  have  allowed  the  exhibition 
1878]  M 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

of  the  pictures  in  court  if  he  had  been  Whistler’s  counsel,  and  he 
asked  :  ‘  Why  didn’t  Jimmie  have  me  ?  ’  I  explained  that  I  had  recom¬ 
mended  his  being  retained,  but  it  was  objected  that  his  fee  would  be 
too  heavy,  and  he  said,  ‘  I’d  have  done  it  for  nothing  for  Jimmie.’ 
I  was  very  sorry  that  Mr.  Ruskin  was  not  punished.” 

Mr.  Arthur  Severn  writes  us  that,  at  the  Ruskin  trial,  he  “was 
on  the  opposite  side,  although  my  sympathies  were  rather  with 
Whistler,  whose  Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold  I  knew  to  be  carefully 
painted.  Whenever  we  met  he  was  most  courteous,  understanding 
my  position.  During  the  trial  one  of  the  Nocturnes  was  handed 
across  the  court  over  the  people’s  heads,  so  that  Whistler  might 
verify  it  as  his  work.  On  its  way,  an  old  gentleman  with  a  bald  head 
got  a  tap  from  the  frame,  then  the  picture  showed  signs  of  falling 
out  of  its  frame,  and  when  Serjeant  Parry  turned  to  Whistler  and  said 
‘  Is  that  your  work,  Mr.  Whistler  ?  ’  the  artist,  putting  his  eyeglass 
up  and  with  his  slight  American  twang,  said,  ‘  Well,  it  was,  but  if  it 
goes  on  much  longer  in  that  way,  I  don’t  think  it  will  be.’  And  when 
Ruskin’s  Titian  was  shown,  ‘  Oh,  come,  we’ve  had  enough  of  those 
Whistlers,’  said  a  juryman.  I  thought  Whistler  looked  anxious  whilst 
the  jury  was  away.  Another  trial  came  on  so  as  not  to  waste  time. 
The  court  was  dark,  and  candles  had  to  be  brought  in— -it  seemed  to  be 
about  some  rope,  and  huge  coils  were  on  the  solicitors’  table.  A 
stupid  clerk  was  being  examined.  Nothing  intelligent  could  be  got 
out  of  him,  and  at  last  Mr.  Day,  one  of  the  counsel  (afterwards  the 
judge),  said,  ‘  Give  him  the  rope’s  end,’  which  produced  great  laughter 
in  court,  in  which  Whistler  heartily  joined.  Then,  suddenly,  a  hush 
fell ;  the  jury  returned  a  verdict  for  Whistler,  damages  one  farthing.” 

There  was  a  report  of  an  application  for  a  new  trial.  A  desire 
was  expressed  that  friends  of  artist  and  critic  might  adjust  the  dispute. 
But  Whistler  made  no  application,  called  for  no  arbitration.  He 
accepted  his  farthing  damages.  The  British  public  rallied  to  their 
prophet,  and  got  up  a  subscription  for  the  rich  man.  It  was  managed 
by  the  Fine  Art  Society.  The  account  was  opened  at  the  Union 
Bank  of  London  in  the  names  of  Mr.  Burne-Jones,  Mr.  F.  S. 
Ellis,  and  Mr.  Marcus  B.  Huish,  and  by  December  io  a  subscrip¬ 
tion  list  was  published,  amounting  already  to  one  hundred  and 
fifty-one  pounds,  five  shillings  and  sixpence,  headed  by  Mr.  Burne- 
8  [1878 


The  Trial 

Jones,  five  guineas.  The  costs  were  estimated  at  three  hundred  and 
eighty-five  pounds. 

According  to  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti,  “  Whistler  wrote  to  Mr.  Anderson 
Rose,  saying  it  would  be  at  least  equally  appropriate  for  a  band  of 
subscribers  to  pay  his  costs ;  and,  he  added,  ‘  And  in  the  event  of  a 
subscription  I  would  willingly  contribute  my  own  mite.’  ” 

Mr.  J.  P.  Heseltine  started  a  subscription  for  Whistler  with  a  con¬ 
tribution  of  twenty-five  pounds,  and  a  list  was  opened  at  the  office 
of  V Art,  134  New  Bond  Street.  But  nothing  came  of  it,  except 
that  Whistler  sent  one  of  his  pastels  to  Mr.  Heseltine.  For  Whistler, 
the  poor  man,  the  costs  were  not  paid,  and  he  went  through  the 
bankruptcy  court. 

A  stream  of  letters  flowed  into  the  Times  and  other  papers.  There 
were  interviews.  Witticisms  went  the  rounds.  Whistler  is  reported 
to  have  said,  “  Well,  you  know,  I  don’t  go  so  far  as  to  Burne-Jones, 
but  really  somebody  ought  to  burn  Jones’  pictures  !  A  few 
journalists  did  not  forget  that  Whistler  was  an  artist,  a  few  people 
were  sympathetic,  a  few  congratulations  were  received  at  the  White 
House.  If  Whistler  was  disappointed  he  kept  it  to  himself.  He  would 
have  liked  better  to  get  his  costs  and  damages,  he  said.  But  the 
verdict  was  a  moral  triumph.  He  had  gone  into  court  not  for  damages 
but  to  vindicate  his  position,  and,  therefore,  that  of  all  artists. 

Whistler  explained  this  position  in  Whistler  v.  Ruskin— Art  and 
Art  Critics  (December  1878),  the  first  of  his  series  of  pamphlets  in 
brown-paper  covers.  It  was  printed  by  Spottiswoode,  though  the 
first  idea  was  to  have  it  lithographed  by  Mr.  Way,  and  published 
by  Chatto  and  Windus.  He  dedicated  it  to  Albert  Moore.  It  is 
a  protest  against  the  folly  of  the  Pen  in  venturing  to  criticise  the 
Brush.  Literature  is  left  to  the  literary  man,  science  to  the  scientist, 
why  then  should  art  be  at  the  mercy  of  “  the  one  who  was  never  in 
it,”  but  whose  boast  it  is  that  he  is  doing  good  to  art.  The  critics 
“are  all  'doing  good  ’  —yes,  they  all  do  good  to  Art.  Poor  ArU 
what  a  sad  state  the  slut  is  in,  an  these  gentlemen  shall  help  her.” 
Ruskin  resigned  the  Slade  Professorship.  He  wrote  to  Dean  Liddell 
from  Brantwood  (November  28,  1878)  that  the  result  of  the  Whistler 
trial  left  him  no  option.  “  I  cannot  hold  a  chair  from  which  I  have 
no  power  of  expressing  judgment  without  being  taxed  for  it  by  British 

1878]  J79 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Law,  Unless  he  continued  to  be  the  Pope  and  the  prophet  he  believed 
himself  to  be,  he  could  not  go  on.  He  could  not  stand  criticism, 
and  he  collapsed  when  his  right  to  criticise  was  questioned.  The 
trial,  he  declared,  made  his  professorship  a  farce.  Whistler  suggested 
that  Ruskin  might  fill  a  Chair  of  Ethics  instead.  “  II  faut  vivre” 
was  the  cry  of  the  art  critic,  but  Whistler  said,  “  Je  n’en  vois  fas  la 
nicessiti 

Whistler  won  the  day.  The  trial  was  the  moral  triumph  he  called 
it.  But,  during  the  next  few  months,  he  had  to  pay  heavily  for  his 
victory. 


CHAPTER  XX:  BANKRUPTCY.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
SEVENTY-EIGHT  AND  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY-NINE. 

Whistler  s  financial  affairs  were  in  hopeless  confusion.  The  builder’s 
estimate  for  the  White  House  was  largely  exceeded,  the  trial  had  to 
be  paid  for,  the  atelier  waited  for  pupils,  and  the  debts  brought  from 
Lindsey  Row  were  many.  He  wrote  to  his  mother  at  Hastings  of  his 
economies  and  his  hopes  of  paying  these  debts,  but  he  did  not  know  the 
meaning  of  economy.  There  is  a  legend  of  a  grocer  who  had  let  a 
bill  for  tomatoes  and  fruit  out  of  season  run  up  until  it  amounted  to 
six  hundred  pounds,  and  when,  after  the  trial,  he  insisted  on  payment, 
Whistler  said  : 

How— -what— why— why,  of  course,  you  have  sent  these  things— 
most  excellent  things  and  they  have  been  eaten,  you  know,  by  most 
excellent  people.  Think  what  a  splendid  advertisement.  And  some¬ 
times,  you  know,  the  salads  are  not  quite  up  to  the  mark,  the  fruit,  you 
know,  not  quite  fresh.  And  if  you  go  into  these  unseemly  discussions 
about  the  bill— well,  you  know,  I  shall  have  to  go  into  discussions  about 
all  this— and  think  how  it  would  hurt  your  reputation  with  all  these 
extraordinary  people.  I  think  the  best  thing  is  not  to  refer  to  the  past — 
1 11  let  it  go,  and  in  the  future  we’ll  have  a  weekly  account — wiser,  you 
know.” 

The  grocer  left  without  his  money,  but  was  offered  in  payment 
two  Nocturnes,  one  the  upright  Valparaiso.  Another  story  of  the 
same  grocer  is  that  he  arrived  with  his  account  as  a  grand  piano  was 
180  [1ST8 


FANNY  LEYLAND 
STUDY  FOR  THE  ETCHING.  G.  108 

PENCIL  SKETCH 

In  ihe  possession  of  J.  H.  Wren,  Esq. 


(See  page  124) 


Bankruptcy 


being  carried  in.  Whistler  said  he  was  so  busy  he  couldn’t  attend  to 
the  matter  just  then,  and  the  grocer  thought  if  grand  pianos  were  being 
bought,  it  must  be  all  right.  To  a  dealer  in  rugs  Whistler  would  have 
given  three  Nocturnes  in  payment,  but  the  dealer  refused  and  spent 
the  rest  of  his  life  regretting  it. 

It  was  no  unusual  occurrence  for  bailiffs  to  be  in  possession,  or  for 
bills  to  cover  the  walls.  The  first  time  this  happened,  Whistler  said 
to  the  people  whom  he  invited  to  dine  that  they  might  know  his  house 
by  the  bills  on  it.  When  someone  complained  that  creditors  kept  him 
walking  up  and  down  all  night,  Whistler  was  amused  : 

“  Dear  me  !  Do  as  I  do  !  Leave  the  walking  up  and  down  to  the 
creditors !  ” 

Of  the  bailiffs  he  made  a  new  feature  of  his  Sunday  breakfasts.  Mrs. 
Lynedoch  Moncrieff  has  told  us  of  a  Sunday  when  two  or  three  men 
waited  with  Whistler’s  servant,  John,  and  she  said  to  Whistler  : 

“  I  am  glad  to  see  you’ve  grown  so  wealthy.” 

“  Ha,  ha  !  Bailiffs  !  You  know,  I  had  to  put  them  to  some  use  !  ” 

Mr  Rossetti  and  his  wife  once  found  the  same  liveried 


attendants.” 

“  ‘  Your  servants  seem  to  be  extremely  attentive,  Mr.  Whistler, 
and  anxious  to  please  you,’  one  of  the  guests  said.  Oh  yes,  was  his 
answer,  ‘  I  assure  you  they  wouldn’t  leave  me.’  ” 

Others  remember  the  Sunday  when  the  furniture  was  numbered 
for  a  sale.  When  breakfast  was  announced  by  a  bailiff,  Whistler  said  : 
"  They  are  wonderful  fellows.  You  will  see  how  excellently  they  wait 
at  table,  and  to-morrow,  you  know,  if  you  want,  you  can  see  them  sell 
the  chairs  you  sit  on  every  bit  as  well.  Amazing.” 

Mrs.  Edwin  Edwards  wrote  us  that  when  three  men  were  in  posses¬ 


sion,  he  treated  them  while  his  friends  carted  away  his  pictures  out  of 
the  back  door.  Others  say  that  the  bailiffs,  multiplied  to  seven,  were 
invited  into  the  garden,  and  given  beer  with  a  little  something  in  it. 
No  sooner  had  they  tasted  than  down  went  their  heads  on  the  table 
round  which  they  sat.  People  dining  with  Whistler  that  evening 
were  taken  into  the  garden  to  see  the  seven  sleepers  of  Ephesus  :  “  Stick 
pins  in  them,  shout  in  their  ears— -see— you  can’t  wake  them  !  ”  All 
evening  it  rained,  and  it  snowed,  and  it  thundered,  and  it  lightened, 
and  it  hailed.  All  night  they  slept.  Morning  came  and  they  slept. 
1878]  181 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

But  just  at  the  hour  at  which  he  had  given  them  their  glass  the  day 
before,  they  woke  up  and  asked  for  more. 

One  of  the  bailiffs  at  the  end  of  the  week,  demanded  his  money. 
Whistler  said  : 

“  If  I  could  afford  to  keep  you  I  would  do  without  you.” 

“  But  what  is  to  become  of  my  wife  and  family  if  I  don’t  get  my 
wages  ?  ” 

“  Ha  ha  !  You  must  ask  those  who  sent  you  here  to  answer  that 
question.” 

“  Really,  Mr.  Whistler,  I  need  the  money.” 

“  Oh  ho  !  Have  a  man  in  yourself.” 

Whistler  said  “  it  was  kind  of  them  to  see  to  such  tedious  affairs.” 
One  he  asked  :  “And  how  long  will  you  be  ‘the  man  in  possession  ?  ’  ” 

“  That,  Mr.  Whistler,  depends  on  your  paying  Mr.  — ’s  bill.” 

“  Awkward  for  me,  but  perhaps  more  for  you  !  I  hope  you  won’t 
mind  it,  though,  you  know,  I  fear  your  stay  with  me  will  be  a  lengthy 
one.  However,  you  will  find  it  not  entirely  unprofitable,  for  you  will 
see  and  hear  much  that  may  be  useful  to  you.” 

When  things  got  more  desperate,  bills  covered  the  front  of  the  house, 
announcing  the  sale.  Whistler,  begging  the  bailiffs  to  be  at  home, 
went  one  night  to  dine.  It  was  stormy,  and,  returning  late,  he  found 
that  the  rain  had  washed  some  of  the  bills  loose  and  they  were  flapping 
in  the  wind.  He  woke  up  the  bailiffs,  made  them  get  a  ladder,  and 
paste  every  bill  down  again.  He  had  allowed  them  to  cover  his  house 
with  their  posters,  but,  so  long  as  he  lived  it  in,  no  man  should  sleep 
with  it  in  a  slovenly  condition. 

Early  in  May  1 879,  Whistler  was  declared  bankrupt.  His  liabilities 
were  four  thousand  six  hundred  and  forty-one  pounds,  nine  shillings 
and  three  pence,  and  his  assets,  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  twenty- 
four  pounds,  nine  shillings  and  four  pence,  ultimately  increased  by 
one  hundred  pounds.  In  his  long  overcoat,  longer  than  ever,  swing¬ 
ing  his  cane  lengthening  in  defiance,  his  hat  set  jauntily  on  his 
curls,  he  appeared  at  the  office  of  a  man  he  knew  in  the  City  : 

“  Ha  ha  !  Well,  you  know,  here  I  am  in  the  City  !  Amazing  ! 
You  know,  on  the  way,  I  dropped  in  to  see  George  Lewis,  being  in 
the  neighbourhood,  and,  you  know,  ha  ha,  he  gave  me  a  paper  for  you 
to  sign  1  ” 

182 


[1879 


Bankruptcy 


It  was  a  petition  in  bankruptcy. 

The  creditors  met  at  the  Inns  of  Court  Hotel  in  June.  Sir  1  homas 
Sutherland  was  in  the  chair,  and  Leyland,  the  chief  creditor,  and  various 
Chelsea  tradesmen  attended.  The  only  novelty  in  the  proceedings 
was  a  speech  by  Whistler  on  plutocrats,  men  with  millions,  and  what 
he  thought  of  them,  and  it  was  with  difficulty  he  was  called  to  order. 
A  committee  of  examiners  was  appointed,  composed  of  Leyland,  Howell, 
and  Mr.  Thomas  Way. 

Leyland  was  not  let  off  by  Whistler.  As  Michael  Angelo,  painting 
the  walls  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  plunged  the  critic  who  had  offended 
him  into  hell,  so  Whistler  caricatured  the  man  by  whom  he  thought 
himself  wronged.  He  painted  three  pictures.  The  first  was.  The 
Loves  of  the  Lobsters— an  Arrangement  in  Rats ,  the  most  prominent 
lobster  in  the  shirt-frills  of  Leyland.  “  Whom  the  gods  wish  to  make 
ridiculous,  they  furnish  with  a  frill!”  he  said,  and  the  saying  was 
repeated  until  it  reached  Leyland,  as  he  meant  it  should.  The  second 
was  Mount  Ararat ,  Noah’s  Ark  on  a  hill,  with  little  figures  all  m  fn  Is. 
The  third  was  The  Gold  Scab— Eruption  in  Frilthy  Lucre,  a  creature, 
breaking  out  in  an  eruption  of  golden  sovereigns,  wearing  the  fri  , 
seated  on  the  White  House  playing  the  piano.  The  hideousness  of 
the  figure  is  more  appalling  because  of  the  beauty  of  colour,  the  decora¬ 
tive  charm.  A  malicious  joke  begun  in  anger,  Mr.  Arthur  Symons 
has  described  it,  from  which  “  beauty  exudes  like  the  scent  of  a  poisonous 
flower.”  These  caricatures  alone  were  in  the  studio  when  Leyland, 
with  the  committee  of  examiners,  made  the  inventory.  Augustus 
Hare  wrote  (May  13,  1879)  of  a  visit  in  the  meantime  : 

“  This  morning  I  went  with  a  very  large  party  to  Whistler’s  studio. 
We  were  invited  to  see  the  pictures,  but  there  was  only  one  there,  The 
Loves  of  the  Lobsters.  It  was  supposed  to  represent  Niagara,  and 
looked  as  if  the  artist  had  upset  the  inkstand,  and  left  Providence  to 
work  out  its  own  results.  In  the  midst  of  the  black  chaos  were  two 
lobsters  curveting  opposite  each  other,  and  looking  as  if  they  were  done 
with  red  sealing-wax.  ‘  I  wonder  you  did  not  pamt  the  lobsters 
making  love  before  they  were  boiled,’  aptly  observed. a  lady  visitor. 
‘  Oh,  I  never  thought  of  that,’  said  Whistler.  It  was  a  joke,  I  suppose. 
The  little  man,  with  his  plume  of  white  hair  ('  the  Whistler  tuft  he 
calls  it)  waving  on  his  forehead,  frisked  about  the  room,  looking  most 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

strange  and  uncanny,  and  rather  diverted  himself  over  our  disappoint¬ 
ment  in  coming  so  far  and  finding  nothing  to  see.  People  admire 
like  sheep  his  pictures  in  the  Grosvenor  Gallery,  following  each  other’s 

lead  because  it  is  the  fashion.” 

Worried  as  he  was,  Whistler  sent  to  the  Grosvenor  of  1879  the 
Portrait  of  Miss  Rosa  Corder,  Portrait  of  Miss  Connie  Gilchrist, 
The  Pacific ,  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Gold,  six  etchings,  two  studies 
in  chalk,  and  three  pastels.  His  etching,  Old  Putney  Bridge , 
was  at  the  Royal  Academy.  The  critics  talked  the  usual  nonsense, 
and  have  since  repented  it  at  their  leisure.  Mr.  Frederick  Wedmore 
distinguished  himself  in  an  article  on  Mr.  Whistler’s  Theories  and  Mr. 
Whistler’s  Art,  published  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  (August  1879),  an^ 
afterwards  reprinted  in  Four  Masters  of  Etching  (1883).  He  could 
appreciate  Whistler’s  work  as  little  as  he  could  understand  Art  and  Art 
Critics,  and  from  its  wit  was  evidently  still  smarting.  Whistler  he 
placed  as : 

“  Long  ago  an  artist  of  high  promise.  Now  he  is  an  artist  often  of 
agreeable,  though  sometimes  of  incomplete  and  seemingly  wayward 
performance.  .  .  .  That  only  the  artist  should  write  on  art  by  con¬ 
tinued  reiteration  may  convince  the  middle-class  public  that  has  little 
of  the  instinct  of  art.  But,  sirs,  not  so  easily  can  you  dispense  with 
the  services  of  Diderot  and  Ruskin.” 

Mr.  Wedmore  had  apparently  never  heard  of  Cennini  and  Diirer, 
Vasari  and  Cellini,  Da  Vinci  and  Reynolds  and  Fromentin,  who  remain, 
while  Diderot  and  Ruskin  are  discredited,  if  not  forgotten,  as 
authorities  on  art.  He  regretted  that  the  originality  of  Whistler’s 
“  painted  work  is  somewhat  apt  to  be  dependent  on  the  innocent  error 
that  confuses  the  beginning  with  the  end.”  He  condemned  the 
Portrait  of  Henry  Irving  as  a  “  murky  caricature  of  Velasquez,”  the 
Carlyle  as  “  a  doleful  canvas.”  The  Nocturnes  were  “  encouraging 
sketches,”  with  “  an  effect  of  harmonious  decoration,  so  that  a  dozen 
or  so  of  them  on  the  upper  panels  of  a  lofty  chamber  would 
afford  even  to  the  wallpapers  of  William  Morris  a  welcome  and 
justifiable  alternative.  .  .  .  They  suffer  cruelly  when  placed  against 
work  not,  of  course,  of  petty  and  mechanical  finish,  but  of  patient 
achievement.  But  they  have  a  merit  of  their  own,  and  I  do  not  wish 
to  understate  it.” 

184 


[1879 


PORTRAIT  OF  MRS.  LOUTS  HUTH 
ARRANGEMENT  IN  BLACK.  NO.  II 


In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  the  Family 
(See  page  125) 


Bankruptcy 

Whistler  had  “never  mastered  the  subtleties  of  accurate  form.  ; 

“  the  interest  of  life-the  interest  of  humanity  ”  had  little  occupied 
him,  but  Wedmore  hoped  that  the  career,  begun  with  promise,  might 
not  close  in  work  too  obstinately  faithful  to  eccentric  error.’’  By  his 
etchings  his  name  might  “  aspire  to  live,”  though,  “.for  his  fame,  r. 
Whistler  has  etched  too  much,  or  at  least  has  published  too.  much, 
though  there  is  “commonness  and  vulgarity”  in  the  figures  m. many 
prints,  though  he  “  lacked  the  art,  the  patience,  or  the  will  to  continue 

others.  <  ,  .  , 

“  The  future  will  forget  his  disastrous  failures,,  to  which  in  the 

present  has  somehow  been  accorded,  through  the  activity  of  friendship, 
or  the  activity  of  enmity,  a  publicity  rarely  bestowed  upon  failures 

at  In^'the  same  month  and  year,  August  1879,  an  American,  Mr.  W.  C. 
Brownell,  published  in  Scribner's  Monthly  an  article  on  Whistler  in 
Painting  and  Etching.  He  treated  Whistler  and  his  work  with  a  serious¬ 
ness  in  “  significant  ”  contrast  to  Wedmore’s  clumsy  flippancy.  This 
was  the  first  intelligent  American  article  in  Whistler’s  support,  and  it 
was  illustrated  by  wood -engravings  of  his  . paintings  and  prints.  Amidst 
the  torrent  of  abuse,  it  came  when  Whistler  most  needed  it.  But  it 
was  not  taken  seriously,  and  much  was  made  of  Mr.  Brownell’s  slip  m 
describing  the  dry-point  of  Jo  as  a  portrait  of  Whistler’s  brother 

Whistler,  left  homeless  by  his  bankruptcy,  revived  the  plan  for  the 
journey  to  Venice,  and  a  series  of  etchings  there.  He  suggested  it  to 
Mr.  Ernest  G.  Brown,  Messrs.  Seeley’s  representative  when  the 
Billingsgate  was  published  in  the  Portfolio ,  and  now  with  the  Fine  Art 
Society  who,  at  his  persuasion,  had  brought  out  four  of  the  London 
plates  this  year  :  Free-Trade  Wharf  Old  Battersea  Bridge ,  Old  Putney 
Bridge,  and  The  Little  Putney,  No.  I.  They  liked  the  new  scheme 
so  well  that  they  gave  Whistler  a  commission  for  twelve  plates  m  Venice 

to  be  delivered  in  three  months’  time. 

By  September  7  (1879),  Whistler  apparently  in  great  spirits,  though 
"  everything  was  to  be  sold  up,”  was  “  arranging  his  route  to  Venice 
with  Mr.  Cole.  From  the  receiver  he  had  permission  to  destroy 
unfinished  work.  Copperplates  were  scratched  and  pictures  smeared 
with  glue,  stripped  off  their  stretchers  and  rolled  up.  Then  he  packed 
his  trunk,  wrote  over  his  front  door  :  “Except  the  Lord  build  the 
1879]  l85 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

house,  they  labour  in  vain  that  build  it.  E.  W.  Godwin,  F.S.A., 
built  this  one,”  and  started  for  Venice. 

The  White  House  was  sold  on  September  18,  1879,  1:0  Mr.  Harry 
Quilter,  who  paid  for  it  two  thousand  seven  hundred  pounds  in  money 
at  the  time,  and  later  in  Whistler’s  jeers.  The  public  laughed  at  the 
furniture  and  effects,  “  at  which  even  a  broker’s  man  would  turn  up 
his  nose.  If  ever  the  seamy  side  of  a  fashionable  artist’s  existence 
was  shown,  it  was  during  that  auction  in  Cheyne  Walk,  Chelsea.  .  .  . 
Truly,  if  Mr.  Ruskin  had  wished  to  have  his  revenge,  he  might  have 
enjoyed  it  to  an  unlimited  extent  at  the  White  House,  when  his  prosecu¬ 
tor’s  specially  built -to-order  abode  was  characterised  as  a  disgrace  to 
the  neighbourhood  by  Philistinic  spectators,  and  its  contents  supplied 
material  for  the  rude  jokes  of  Hebrew  brokers  and  the  special  corre¬ 
spondent  of  the  Echo.” 

“Two  wooden  spoons,  a  rusty  knife  handle  and  two  empty  oil 
tins,”  was  one  of  the  lots.  Rolls  of  canvases  were  carried  off  for  a 
few  shillings.  Out  of  them  came  a  Valparaiso,  a  Cremorne  Gardens, 
the  portrait  of  Sir  Henry  Cole,  a  White  Girl  and  a  Blue  Girl,  the  portrait 
of  Miss  Florence  Leyland,  in  such  a  condition  that  nothing  now  remains 
but  the  two  blue  pots  of  flowers  on  either  side.  Mr.  Thomas  Way 
bought  The  Lobsters  and  Mount  Ararat.  Other  pictures  went  astray 
or  disappeared  temporarily,  for  a  few  intelligent  people  were  at  the 
sale.  Whistler  wrote  to  Mrs.  William  Whistler  from  Venice  begging 
her  to  trace  and  find  them,  which  she  was  unable  to  do.  But  they 
are  turning  up  now. 

Whistler’s  china,  prints,  and  a  few  pictures  were  reserved  for  a  sale 
at  Sotheby’s,  on  Thursday,  February  12,  1880.  The  title-page  of  the 
catalogue  is:  “ In  Liquidation.  By  order  of  the  Trustees  of  J.  A. 
McN.  Whistler.  Catalogue  of  the  Decorative  Porcelain,  Cabinets, 
Paintings  and  other  Works  of  Art  of  J.  A.  McN.  Whistler.  Received 
from  the  White  House,  Fulham,  comprising  Numerous  Pieces  of  Blue  and 
White  China  ;  the  Painting  in  Oil  of  Connie  Gilchrist,  Dancing  with  a 
Skipping-Rope,  styled  A  Girl  in  Gold,  by  Whistler ;  A  Satirical 
painting  of  a  Gentleman,  styled  The  Creditor,  by  Whistler.  Crayon 
Drawings  and  Etchings,  Cabinets,  and  Miscellaneous  Articles.”  When 
Leyland  learned  that  the  Gold  Scab— The  Creditor,  was  in  the  sale  he 
did  his  best  to  have  it  removed.  Dealers  and  amateurs  were  there  : 
186  [1880 


Venice 

Way  Oscar  Wilde,  Huish,  The  Fine  Art  Society,  Dowdeswell,  Lord 
Redesdale,  Deschamps,  Wickham  Flower  and  Howell 
Howell  secured  the  Japanese  screen,  the  background  of  the  Princes  d^ 
Pays  de  la  Porcelains .  The  Japanese  bath  fe  o  •  J 
Creditor  was  bought  by  Messrs.  Dowdeswell  for  twelve  gume« 
turned  up  in  the  King’s  Road,  Chelsea,  years  later,  and  was  purchased 
by  Mr  G  P.  Jacomb-Hood  for  ten  pounds.  It  has  since  been  exhib  ed 
a,  the  Goupil  Gallery,  when  one  of  the  serious  new  crmcs  regretted 
« that  Whistler  allowed  himself  to  be  influenced  by  Beards  y. 

Gilchrist  was  sold  to  Mr.  Wilkinson  for  fifty  guineas.  Whistler  s  bust 
by  Boehm  was  bought  by  Mr.  Way  for  six  guineas.  A  crayon  slet 
catalogued  as  a  portrait  of  Sarah  Bernhardt,  was  knocked  down  for  five 
guineas  to  Oscar  Wilde,  who  asked  her  to  sign  it,  which  she  did,  wrm  g 
that  it  was  very  like  her.  It  might  have  been  handed  down  as  her 
portrait,  had  it  not  appeared  at  Oscar  Wilde’s  sale,  and  found  its  way 
back  to  Whistler,  who  declared  that  Madame  Bernhardt  never  sat  to 
him.  The  sale  at  Sotheby’s  realised  three  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
pounds,  nineteen  shillings. 


CHAPTER  XXI  :  VENICE.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
SEVENTY-NINE  AND  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY. 


For  years  Whistler  wanted  to  go  to  Venice.  When  he  got  there  e 
found  it  a  difficult  place  to  work  in.  It  was  cold,  and  he  felt  the  cold. 
It  is  almost  impossible  to  hold  a  copperplate  or  a  needle  with: numbe 
fingers,  and  Venice  in  ice  made  him  long  for  London  m  fog.  He  wou 
gladly  have  exchanged  the  Square  of  St.  Mark’s  for  Piccadilly,  a  gondola 


for  a  hansom.  .  .  ,  f 

Affairs  in  London  worried  him.  He  wrote  anxiously  for  news  of 

the  vanished  pictures.  He  knew  that  his  private  and  business  letters 
had  got  into  second-hand  bookshops— even  letters  to  his  mother. 

He  was  ill  and  the  doctor  was  far  away.  , 

Venice  he  thought  beautiful,  most  beautiful  after  ram  when,  re 
wrote  his  mother,  the  colour  and  reflections  were  gorgeous.  The 
Venetian  masters  interested  him.  At  the  Scuola  di  San  Rocco  he  is 
remembered  climbing  up  for  a  closer  look  at  the  Tintorettos.  Veronese 

1880]  187 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

and  Titian  were  great  swells ;  Canaletto  and  Guardi,  great  masters. 
He  went  to  St.  Mark’s  for  Mass  at  Christmas,  though  he  wrote  that  the 
ceiling  of  The  Peacock  Room  was  more  splendid  than  the  dome.  But, 
as  he  told  Fantin  years  before,  it  was  a  waste  of  time  to  search  for 
new  subjects,  and  all  subjects  were  new  to  him  in  Venice.  Countess 
Rucellai  (Miss  Edith  Bronson)  writes  that  “  he  used  to  say  Venice  was  an 
impossible  place  to  sit  down  and  sketch,  ‘  there  was  something  still 
better  round  the  corner.’  ” 

Mr.  Henry  Woods  says :  “  He  wandered  for  motives,  but  no  matter 
how  much  he  wandered,  and  appeared  to  loaf,  when  he  found  a  subject 
he  worked  with  a  determination  that  no  cold  and  cheerlessness  could 
daunt.  I  remember  his  energy— and  suffering — when  doing  those 
beautiful  pastels,  nearly  all  done  during  the  coldest  winter  I  have 
known  in  Venice,  and  mostly  towards  evening  when  the  cold  was 
bitterest  !  He  soon  found  out  the  beautiful  quality  of  colour  there  is 
here  before  sunset  in  winter.  He  had  a  strong  constitution.  He  was 
only  unwell  once  with  a  bad  cold.” 

The  Fine  Art  Society  asked  him  to  make  twelve  plates  in  three 
months.  The  plates  were  not  started  for  weeks,  and  the  Fine  Art 
Society  demanded  what  he  was  doing.  The  answer  was  at  first  silence 
and  then  a  request  for  more  money.  The  Fine  Art  Society  began  to 
doubt  and  Whistler  was  furious.  Then  reports  came  that  he  was  doing 
enormous  plates  they  had  not  ordered.  Howell  and  others  said  that 
Whistler  would  never  come  back,  and  Academicians  laughed  at  the 
idea  of  the  Society  getting  either  plates  or  their  money  from  such  a 
"  charlatan.”  With  each  new  suggestion  of  doubt,  Whistler’s  fury  grew. 
“  Amazing  their  letters  and  mine,  but,  perhaps,  not  for  the  public.” 
Hie  delay  was  his  care.  Even  Frank  Duveneck,  most  procrastinating 
of  mortals,  made  his  Venetian  etchings,  and  Otto  Bacher  changed  his 
style  and  did  his  Venetian  plates,  before  Whistler  found  his  subjects. 

It  amused  him  to  tell  the  American  Consul  that  idleness  is  the  virtue 
of  the  artist,  but  it  was  a  virtue  he  denied  himself.  It  was  “  the  same 
old  story  ”  he  wrote  his  mother,  “  I  am  at  my  work  the  first  thing 
at  dawn  and  the  last  thing  at  night.”  He  could  not  stand  the  Venetian 
crowd,  and  he  worked  as  much  as  possible  out  of  windows.  He  did 
little  from  gondola  or  sandolo.  To  the  tourist,  a  gondola  is  a  thing  of 
joy  ;  to  the  worker,  it  is  a  terrible,  unstable  studio,  and  even  in  the  old 
188  [1880 


Venice 

days  it  cost  a  hundred  francs  a  month,  but  then,  the  gondolier  was 

y0UHe  mostly  left  the  monuments  of  Venice,  as  of  London,  alone.  In 
London  he  preferred  Battersea  and  Wapping  to  Westminster  and  bt. 
Paul’s ;  in  Venice  little  canals  and  calli,  doorways  and  gardens,  beggars 
and  bridges  made  a  stronger  appeal  to  him  than  churches  and  palaces. 
He  deliberately  avoided  the  motives  of  Guardi  and  Canaletto,  lo 
reproduce  the  masterpieces  of  the  masters  is,  he  thought,  an  imperti¬ 
nence,  and  he  found  for  himself  “  a  Venice  in  Venice.”  _ 

Whistler,  Mr.  Howard  Walker  says,  took  a  room  in  the  Palazzo 
Rezzonico,  where  he  would  paint  the  sunset  and  then  swear  at  the 
sun  for  setting.  We  know  of  no  work  done  from  the  roof  of  the 
palace,  though  V he  Palaces  which  he  etched  are  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  Grand  Canal.  Mr.  Ross  Turner  remembers  that  he 
found  Whistler  in  a  small  house  with  a  small  garden  in  front  near 
the  Frari,  no  doubt  “  the  quarters  ”  of  which  Otto  Bacher  speaks, 
and  Mr.  Turner  remembers,  too,  that  canvases  were  hanging  on 
the  wall,  and  a  large  one,  with  a  big  gondolier  sketched  on  it,  stood 
by  the  door.  He  was  living  in  the  Rio  San  Barnaba  when  Maud 
came  to  join  him.  She  could  tell  the  whole  story,  but  she  will  not. 

Bacher  says  Whistler  wore  a  “large,  wide-brimmed,  soft,  brown 
hat  tilted  far  back,  suggesting  a  brown  halo.  It  was  a  background 
for  his  curly  black  hair  and  singular  white  lock.  ...  A  dark  sack- 
coat  almost  covered  an  extremely  low  turned-down  collar,  while  a 
narrow  black  ribbon  did  service  as  a  tie,  the  long,  pennant -like  ends 
of  which,  flapping  about,  now  and  then  hit  his  single  eyeglass. 

Bacher  describes  him  in  evening  dress  without  a  tie,  and  Mr.  Forbes 
recalls  his  coming  without  one  to  the  Bronson’s,  and  Bronson  saying  it 
was  sad  to  see  artists  so  poor  that  they  could  not  afford  a  necktie. 
Bacher  also  quotes  Whistler  as  always  substituting  “  Whistler  .  for 
“  I  ”  in  his  talk,  which  we  never  knew  him  to  do  and  it  seems  little 
like  him. 

Several  of  Duveneck’s  pupils  followed  him  from  Florence  in  1B80, 
and  they  lived  in  the  Casa  Jankovitz,  the  house  that  juts  out  squarely 
at  the  lower  end  of  the  Riva  degli  Schiavoni,  all  Venice  in  front  of  it. 
Whistler  was  enchanted  with  the  place  when  he  went  to  see  them,  and 
moved  there.  He  had  one  room,  the  windows  looking  over  the  Lagoon, 

1880]  l89 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

and  from  them  the  etchings  and  pastels  of  the  Riva  and  the  Lagoon 
were  made.  Many  things  are  told  of  this  room,  of  plates  bitten 
on  the  top  of  the  bureau,  the  acid  running  down,  and  the  scramble 
to  save  his  shirts  in  the  drawers  beneath.  Other  stories  are  of  the 
printing-press  on  which  Canaletto’s  plates  may  have  been  pulled  and 
many  of  Duveneck’s  and  Bather’s  were  ;  the  press  which  used  to  work 
up  to  a  certain  point  and  then  go  with  such  a  rush  that  it  had  to  be 
stopped,  for  fear  the  bed  would  come  out  on  the  floor. 

There  was  a  large  colony  of  foreign  artists  and  art  lovers  and  a  club, 
English  in  name,  really  cosmopolitan,  in  Venice,  where  Whistler  met 
Rico,  Wolkoff,  Van  Haanen,  Tito,  Blaas,  if  he  had  not  already  met  them 
on  the  Piazza.  Alexander,  Rolshoven  and  Bacher  were  with  Duveneck. 
Harper  Pennington  came  in  the  autumn,  and  Scott,  Ross  Turner, 
Blum,  Woods,  Bunney,  Jobbins,  and  Logsdail  were  amongst  the  other 
men  he  knew.  The  American  Consul  Grist,  and  the  Vice-Consul 
Graham,  were  persons  of  importance,  and  the  United  States  Consulate 
a  meeting-place.  Mrs.  Bronson  lived  in  Casa  Alvisi,  the  Brownings 
and  the  Curtises  had  houses  in  Venice,  and  with  all  three  families 
Whistler  became  intimate.  Londoners  turned  up.  Harry  Quilter  tells 
of  one  encounter  : 

“  In  the  spring  of  1880  I  spent  a  few  weeks  in  Venice.  I  had  been 
drawing  for  about  five  days,  in  one  of  the  back  canals,  a  specially  beautiful 
doorway,  when  one  morning  I  heard  a  sort  of  war-whoop,  and  there 
was  Whistler,  in  a  gondola,  close  by,  shouting  out  as  nearly  as  I  can 
remember  :  ‘  Hi,  hi  !  What  !  What  !  Here,  I  say,  you’ve  got  my 
doorway  !  ’  ‘  Your  doorway  ?  Confound  your  doorway  !  ’  I  replied. 

‘  It’s  my  doorway,  I’ve  been  here  for  the  last  week.’  ‘  I  don’t  care  a 
straw,  I  found  it  out  first.  I  got  that  grating  put  up.’  ‘  Very  much 
obliged  to  you,  I’m  sure  ;  it’s  very  nice.  It  was  very  good  of  you.’ 
And  so  for  a  few  minutes  we  wrangled,  but  seeing  that  the  canal  was  very 
narrow,  and  that  there  was  no  room  for  two  gondolas  to  be  moored 
in  front  of  the  chosen  spot,  mine  being  already  tied  up  exactly  opposite, 

I  asked  him  if  he  would  not  come  and  work  in  my  gondola.  He  did  so, 
and,  I  am  bound  to  say,  turned  the  tables  on  me  cleverly.  For,  pre¬ 
tending  not  to  know  who  I  was,  he  described  me  to  myself,  and  recounted 
the  iniquities  of  the  art  critic  of  the  Times,  one  ‘  ’Airy  Quilter  *  ” 
Everybody  says  Whistler  was  penniless  in  Venice,  always  borrowing, 
iqo  [1880 


Venice 

why,  we  do  not  know,  unless  the  money  went  to  pay  for  things  in 
London.  But  there  were  dinners  and  Sunday  breakfasts. .  Many 
were  given  in  a  little  open-air  trattoria ,  near  the  Via  Garibaldi.  The 
Panada,  that  noisiest  of  noisy  restaurants,  was  one  of  his  haunts,  and 
there  was  another  opposite  the  old  post-office.  The  food,  nothing 
but  fowl,”  he  wrote,  tired  him  so  that  he  surprised  himself  by  spending 
a  fortune  on  tea,  and  carrying  home  strange  pieces  of  fat,  which  he 
tried  to  fry  into  resemblance  of  the  slices  of  bacon  served  by  Mrs, 
Cossens,  his  Chelsea  housekeeper.  Mr.  Scott  says  : 

“  If  Whistler  could  not  lay  a  table,  he  knew  how  to  turn  out  tasty 
little  dishes  over  a  spirit-lamp  ;  and  it  was  not  long  before  the  inevitable 
Sunday  breakfasts  were  instituted  in  that  little  room.  Polenta  a 
V  Americaine,  which  he  had  induced  the  landlady  to  prepare  under  his 
direction,  we  used  to  eat  with  such  sort  of  treacle,  alias  golden  syrup, 
as  could  be  obtained.  Fish  was  cheaper  and  more  plentiful  then  than 
now  in  the  Water  City,  and  the  lanky  serving-women  could  fry  with 
the  best  of  the  famous  Ciozzotte.  The  ‘  thin  red  wine  ’  of  the  country, 
in  large  flasks  at  about  sixpence  a  quart,  was  plentiful,  and  these  simple 
things,  with  the  accompanying  ‘  flow  of  soul  ’  made  a  feast  for  the  gods. 
There  was  no  room  for  many  guests  at  one  time,  but  Henry  Woods, 
Ruben,  W.  Graham,  Butler,  and  Roussoff  were  often  with  us.” 

Days  were  spent  on  the  Lido,  and,  doubtless  he  went  to  Chioggia, 
Murano,  Burano,  and  Torcello.  These  little  journeys  were  more 
costly  and  difficult  then  than  now,  and  there  are  no  plates  except  of 
the  Lido  and  the  Murano  Glass-Furnace ,  and  no  pastels  except  one  or 
two  on  the  Lido. 

Whistler  loved  the  nights  at  the  never-closed  clubs  in  the  Piazza, 
Florian’s  and  the  Quadri,  or  the  Orientale  on  the  Riva,  where  the  coffee 
was  just  as  good  and  two  centessimi  cheaper.  Around  these  nights 
endless  legends  are  growing,  and  like  all  the  legends,  they  are  such  a 
part  of  Whistler  they  cannot  be  ignored.  No  one  delighted  in  them 
more  than  he,  no  one  ever  told  them  so  well.  They  became  the 
favourite  yarns  of  Duveneck’s  boys,  to  which  we  listened  many  an 
evening  when  we  came  to  Venice  four  years  later.  It  was  then  we 
first  heard  of  Wolkoff,  or  Roussoff  as  he  is  known  in  Bond  Street,  and 
his  boast  that  he  could  make  pastels  like  Whistler’s  and  the  Americans 
bet  of  a  champagne  dinner  that  he  couldn’t,  and  the  evening  in  the 
1880]  *9* 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Casa  Jankovitz,  when  Rico,  Duveneck,  Curtis,  Bacher,  Woods,  and 
an  Haanen  recognised  WolkofFs  work  and  every  time  one  of  his 
paste  s  was  produced  cried  :  "  Take  it  away !  »  The  Russian  said  to 

frnda  T  "““h  u  Y°U  tn°W’  y°“  SCtatcl1  a  Russian>  and  7°u 
find  a  Tartar  .  Ha  ha  !  said  Whistler,  "  I’ve  scratched  an  artist 

and  found  an  ama-Tartah !  ”  Another  story  was  of  the  tiny  glass 

gure,  or  maybe  a  little  black  baby  from  the  shrine  of  St.  Anthony  at 

Padua  topped  into  Whistler’s  glass  of  water,  where  it  looked  like  a 

little  devil  bobbing  up  and  down,  so  that  Whistler,  when  he  saw  it 

thought  something  was  wrong  with  his  eyes,  and  sipped  the  water  and 

dtvn  d  e  f'lt  ',f\m0re  he  Sipped  and  shook  the  m°«  the  little 
danced,  and  finally  he  upset  the  glass  over  everybody,  and  the  little 

emon  fell  in  his  lap.  And  there  was  another  of  the  night  when  a 
gondola,  with  a  transparency  showing  Nocturnes  and  a  band  playing 

ankee-Doodle,  moved  up  and  down  the  Grand  Canal  and  along  the 

Kiva,  never  stopping  until  it  was  greeted  with  a  loud  “  Ha  ha  •  ”  from 
the  darkness.  And  we  heard  of  the  day  when  Whistler,  seeing  Bunney 
on  a  scaffold  struggling  with  St.  Mark’s,  his  life-work  for  Ruskin,  fastened 
acaid,  I  am  totally  blind,”  to  his  coat-tail.  And  we  were  told  of  the 

lot  noon  when  Whistler,  leaning  out  of  his  window,  discovering  a  bowl 
of  goldfish  below  on  the  window-ledge  of  his  landlady,  against  whom 
he  had  a  grudge,  let  down  a  fishing-line,  caught  the  fish,  fried  them, 
ropped  them  back  into  the  bowl,  and  watched  the  return  of  their 
owner,  who  was  sure  her  fish  had  been  fried  by  the  sun.  And  the  story 
o  Blum  and  Whistler,  without  a  schei,  crossing  the  Academy  Bridge, 
um  sticking  m  his  eye  a  little  watch  with  a  split  second-hand  that 
went  round  so  fast  the  keeper  thought  he  had  the  evil  eye,  and  they  got 
over  without  paying ;  or  of  the  boys’  farewell/^  to  Whistler  in  August 
when  it  was  rumoured  he  was  going,  and  in  a  coal  barge,  which  Bacher 
transforms  into  a  fairy-like  floating  bower  festooned  with  the  wealth 
o  autumn>  a  feast  of  melons  and  salads  and  Chianti  was  spread  and 
eaten  as  they  drifted  up  the  Grand  Canal  with  the  tide,  the  lights  of 
tlieir  lanterns  bringing  everyone  to  stare,  until  the  rain  drove  them 
™,er. th{;  Rialto,  where  they  spent  the  rest  of  the  night,  and  then 
Whistler  didn’t  go  after  all.  When  Whistler  left  they  say  he  asked  the 
authors  of  these  adventures  up  to  his  room  and  showed  them  a  number 
of  prints,  and  said,  “  Now,  you  boys  have  been  very  good  to  me  all 
192  [1880 


(See  page  125) 


rIAUD  STANDING 
ETCHING.  G.  1 14 


Venice 


this  time  and  I  want  to  do  something  for  you,”  and  he  turned  over  his 
prints  carefully,  and  said,  “  I  have  thought  it  out,”  and  he  took  one, 
a  spoiled  one,  and  he  counted  their  heads,  and  he  cut  it  into  as  many 
pieces  as  there  were  people,  and  presented  a  fragment  to  each,  and  as 
they  marched  downstairs  all  they  heard  was  “  Ha  ha  !  ”  These,  and 
hundreds  like  them,  are  the  legends  you  hear  on  the  Piazza. 

Two  friends  of  the  Venetian  days,  Mr.  Harper  Pennington  and  Mr. 
Ralph  Curtis,  have  sent  us  their  impressions.  Mr.  Harper  Pennington 
writes  us  :  “  He  gave  me  many  lessons  there  in  Venice.  He  would  hook 
his  arm  in  mine  and  take  me  off  to  look  at  some  Nocturne  that  he  was 
studying  or  memorising,  and  then  he  would  show  me  how  he  went  about 
to  paint  it— in  the  daytime.  He  let  me— invited  me,  indeed,  to  stand 
at  his  elbow  as  he  set  down  in  colour  some  effect  he  loved  from  the 
natural  things  in  front  of  us.  What  became  of  many  such  small 
canvases,  all  of  them— I  do  not  know.  The  St.  George  Nocturne ,  Can- 
field  has.  Who  owns  The  Facade  of  San  Marco  ?  * 

“  There  was  an  upright  sunset,  too,  looking  from  my  little  terrace 
on  the  Riva  degli  Schiavoni  over  towards  San  Giorgio,  and  others  that 
I  saw  him  work  on  in  1880.” 

Mr.  Curtis  gives  us  other  details :  “  Shortly  before  his  return  to 
England  with  some  of  the  etchings  and  the  pastels,  he  gave  his  friends 
a  tea-dinner.  As  seeing  the  best  of  his  Venetian  work  was  the  real 
feast,  the  hour  for  the  hors  d’ oeuvre,  consisting  of  sardines,  hard-boiled 
eggs,  fruit,  cigarettes,  and  excellent  coffee  prepared  by  the  ever- 
admirable  Maud,  was  arranged  for  six  o’clock.  Effective  pauses 
succeeded  the  presentation  of  each  masterpiece.  During  these 
entr’actes  Whistler  amused  his  guests  with  witty  conjectures  as  to  the 
verdict  of  the  grave  critics  in  London  on  ‘  these  things.’  One  of  his 
favourite  types  for  sarcasm  used  to  be  the  eminently  respectable 
Londoner  who  is  ‘  always  called  at  8.30,  close-shaved  at  a  quarter  to 
9,  and  in  the  City  at  10.’  ‘What  will  he  make  of  this  ?  Serve  him 
right  too  1  Ha  ha  !  ’ 

“  Whistler  was  a  constant  and  ever-welcome  guest  at  Casa  Alvisi, 
the  hospitable  house  of  Mrs.  Bronson,  whom  he  often  called  Santa 
Cattarina  Seconda.  During  happy  years,  from  lunch  till  long  past 
bedtime,  her  house  was  the  open  rendezvous  for  the  rich  and  poor,  the 

*  Mr.  J.  J.  Cowan. 

1880]  N  193 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

famous  and  the  famished,  les  rois  en  exil  and  the  heirs-presumptive  to 
the  thrones  of  fame.  Whistler  there  had  his  seat  from  the  first,  but  to 
the  delight  of  all  he  generally  held  the  floor.  One  night  a  curious 
contrast  was  the  great  and  genial  Robert  Browning  commenting  on  the 
projected  form  of  a  famous  '  Jimmy  letter  ’  to  the  World. 

Very  late,  on  hot  scirocco  nights,  long  after  the  concert  crowd  had 
dispersed,  one  little  knot  of  men  might  often  be  seen  in  the  deserted 
Piazza,  sipping  refreshment  in  front  of  Florian’s.  You  might  be  sure 
that  was  Whistler  in  white  duck,  praising  France,  abusing  England,  and 
thoroughly  enjoying  Italy.  He  was  telling  how  he  had  seen  painting 
in  Paris  revolutionised  by  innovators  of  powerful  handling  :  Manet, 
Courbet,  Vollon,  Regnault,  Carolus  Duran.  He  felt  far  more  enthu¬ 
siasm  for  the  then  recently  resuscitated  popularity  of  Velasquez  and 
Hals. 

Tne  ars  cel  are  artem  of  Terborgh  and  Vermeer  always  delighted 
him  the  mysterious  technique,  the  discreet  distinction  of  execution, 
the  ‘  one  skin  all  over  it,5  of  the  minor  masters  of  Holland  was  one  of 
his  eloquent  themes.  To  Whistler  it  was  a  treat  when  a  Frenchman 
arrived  in  Venice,  If  he  could  not  like  his  paint,  he  certainly  enjoyed 
his  language.  French  seemed  to  give  him.  extra  exhilaration.  From 
beginning  to  end  he  owed  much  to  the  branch  for  first  recognising 
what  he  had  learned  from  Japan.” 


CHAPTER  XXII :  VENICE.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  SEVENTY- 
NINE  AND  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY  CONTINUED. 

Nothing  in  Whistler’s  life  is  more  astonishing  than  the  praise  and 
blame  raised  by  the  Venetian  pastels  on  their  exhibition  in  London. 
Artists  fought  over  them.  To  some,  they  were  original,  they  gave 
the  character  of  Venice  ;  to  others,  they  were  cheap,  anybody  could 
do  them.  Both  were  wrong,  as  both  sides  always  were.  “  Anybody  ” 
cannot  do  them  ;  he  had  been  always  making  pastels  :  the  subject, 
not  the  method,  was  new.  Had  some  of  the  combatants  visited 
the  Academy  at  Venice,  they  might  have  discovered  his  inspiration 
in  the  drawings  of  the  Old  Masters,  where  he  had  found  it  years  before 
at  the  Louvre.  He  was  only  carrying  on  tradition. 

I94 


[1879-80 


Venice 

Whistler  used  coloured  paper  for  the  pastels  because  it  gave  him, 
without  any  work,  the  foundation  of  his  colour-scheme  in  the  simplest 
manner,  and  because  he  could  work  straight  away  on  it,  and  not 
ruin  the  surface  and  tire  himself  getting  the  tone.  Bacher  describes 
him  in  his  gondola  laden  with  pastels.  But  his  materials  were  so  few 
that  he  could  wander  on  foot  in  the  narrow  streets,  the  best  way  to 
work  as  everyone  who  has  lived  in  Venice  knows.  For  it  is  difficult 
to  find  again  a  place,  and  impossible  to  see  again  the  effect,  that  has 
fascinated  you.  He  carried  only  a  little  portfolio  or  drawing-board, ' 
some  sheets  of  tinted  paper,  black  chalk,  half  a  dozen  pastels,  and 
varnished  or  silver-coated  paper  to  cover  the  drawing  when  finished. 
Once  he  found  what  he  wanted,  he  made  a  sketch  in  black  chalk  and 
then  with  pastel  hinted  the  colour  of  the  walls,  the  shutters,  the  spots 
of  the  women’s  dresses,  putting  in  the  colour  as  in  mosaic  or  stained 
glass  between  the  black  lines,  never  painting,  but  noting  the  right 
touch  in  the  right  place,  keeping  the  colour  pure.  It  looked  so 
easy,  “  only  the  doing  it  was  the  difficulty,”  he  would  say.  When 
he  finished  the  drawings  he  showed  them.  Mr.  Scott  recalls  that 
“  the  latest  pastels  used  to  be  brought  out  for  inspection.  Whistler 
would  always  show  his  sketches  in  his  own  way  or  not  at  all.  In  the 
absence  of  a  proper  easel  and  a  proper  light,  they  were  usually  laid  on 
the  floor.” 

The  “  painter  fellows  ”  were  startled  by  their  brilliancy,  Whistler 
told  his  mother,  and  he  thought  rather  well  of  them  himself. 

The  pastels  have  been  praised  with  the  inconsequence  charac¬ 
teristic  of  so  much  praise  of  his  work.  1  he  drawing  often  is  either 
not  good  in  itself  or  so  slight  as  to  be  of  little  importance..  The  beauty 
is  in  the  suggestion  of  colour  or  the  arrangement  of  line.  Though 
he  passed  the  spring,  summer,  winter,  and  part  of  two  autumns  in 
the  city  there  is  no  attempt,  save  in  a  few  sunsets,  to  give  atmospheric 
effect,  or  the  season,  or  the  time  of  year.  What  he  saw  that  pastel 
would  do,  what  he  made  it  do,  was  to  record  certain  lines  and  to  suggest 
certain  colours.  Critics  and  artists,  having  never  studied  pastel,  were 
unaware  of  what  had  been  done  with  it.  The  revival  did  not  come 
for  some  years  after  Whistler  showed  his  Venetian  series,  when  there 
was  a  “  boom”  all  over  the  world,  and  pastel  societies  were  started, 
most  of  which  have  since  collapsed. 

1879-80]  I9S 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

The  boom  ”  in  etching  commenced  years  before  Whistler  went 
to  Venice.  There  were  standards  :  Whistler  had  already  accom¬ 
plished  great  things,  after  a  formula  laid  down  by  Dtirer,  Rembrandt, 
and  Hollar.  Therefore,  when  he  made  etchings  which  struck  the 
uncritical,  and  even  those  who  cared,  as  something  new,  the  uncritical 
were  shocked  because  their  preconceived  notions  were  upset,  and  those 
who  cared  were  astonished.  The  difference  between  the  Venetian 
and  the  London  plates  was  so  great  that  the  two  series  might  be  attri¬ 
buted  to  two  men.  This  was  due  partly  to  the  difference  between 
London  and  Venice  seen  by  an  artist  sensitive  to  the  character  of 
places,  but  more  to  the  difference  of  technique  between  the  earlier 
and  the  later  plates.  Not  so  many  years  ago,  talking  to  him  about 
this  subject,  we  said  that  the  Venetian  plates  seemed  to  be  done  in 
a  new  way.  It  so  happened  that  the  Adam  and  Eve— Old  Chelsea 
and  ‘The  Traghetto  were,  as  they  are  now,  hanging  almost  side  by  side 
on  our  walls.  In  five  minutes  he  proved  that  one  was  the  outgrowth 
of  the  other,  and  that  there  was  a  natural  development  from  the 
beginning  of  his  work.  Until  the  London  Memorial  Exhibition  it 
was  impossible  to  trace  this,  because  the  prints  had  never  been 
hung  together  chronologically,  not  even  at  the  Grolier  Club,  in  New 
Y  ork,  where,  for  want  of  space,  two  separate  shows  were  made.  Before 
Whistler  exhibited  his  Venetian  plates  most  people  knew  nothing 
but  the  French  Set  and  the  Thames  Set.  The  intermediate  stages 
had  not  been  followed,  and  the  Venetian  plates  seemed  a  new  thing. 
But  the  difference  between  them  and  the  Thames  series  is  one  of 
development.  Whistler  always  spoke  of  the  Black  Lion  Wharf  as 
boyish,  though  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  anything  of  its  kind 
more  complete.  His  estimate  has  been  accepted  by  many.  Mr. 
Bernhard  Sickert,  in  writing  of  it,  thinks  it  misleading  to  say  that 
every  tile,  every  beam  has  been  drawn.  “  These  details  are  merely 
filled  in  with  a  certain  number  of  strokes  of  a  certain  shape,  accepted 
as  indicating  the  materials  of  which  they  are  constructed.”  When 
an  etching  is  in  pure  line  and  owes  little  to  the  printer,  as  in  this  case, 
it  is  the  wonderful  arrangement  of  lines,  the  wonderful  lines  them¬ 
selves,  which  make  you  feel  that  everything,  every  beam  and  every 
tile,  has  been  drawn  ;  that  every  detail  actually  has  been  drawn  we  did 
not  suppose  anybody  would  be  so  absurd  as  to  imagine.  The  character 
I96  [1879-80 


WHISTLER  IN  HIS  STUDIO 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Douglas  Freshfield,  Esq. 


(See  page  129) 


Venice 


of  the  lines  gives  you  this  impression,  which  is  exactly  what  the  artist 
wanted,  and  this  is  what  proved  Whistler  an  impressionist.  Another 
critic  has  said  that  Whistler  exhausted  all  his  blacks  on  the  houses. 
He  did  nothing  of  the  sort.  He  concentrated  them  there,  and  did 
not  take  away  from  the  interest  of  the  wharf  he  was  drawing  by  an 
equal  elaboration  in  the  boats,  the  barges,  and  the  figures.  As  he 
learned  more  he  gave  up  his  literal,  definite  method.  Instead  of 
drawing  the  panes  of  a  window  in  firm  outline,  he  suggested  them  by 
drawing  the  shadows  and  the  reflected  lights  with  short  strokes,  and 
scarcely  any  outline.  In  the  London  plates  he  got  the  effect  on  his 
buildings  by  different  bitings.  In  Venice  he  suggested  the  shadows. 
In  both,  the  figures  in  movement  are  nearly  the  same,  but  there  is 
a  great  advance  in  the  drawing  in  the  Venice  plates,  where  they  give  the 
feeling  of  life.  In  the  Millbank  and  the  Lagoon,  the  subjects,  or  the 
dominating  lines  in  the  subjects,  are  the  same,  a  series  of  posts  carrying 
the  eye  from  the  foreground  to  the  extreme  distance,  but  their  treatment 
in  the  Venetian  plate,  as  well  as  the  drawing  of  the  figures,  is  more 
expressive.  Simplicity  of  expression  has  never  been  carried  further. 
Probably  the  finest  plate,  in  its  simplicity  and  directness,  is  The  Bridge. 
Whistler  now  obtained  the  quality  of  richness  by  suggesting  detail, 
and  also  by  printing.  In  The  Traghetto  there  is  the  same  scheme  as 
in  The  Miser  and  The  Kitchen ,  but  the  Venice  plate  is  more  painter¬ 
like.  Without  taking  away  from  the  etched  line  he  has  given  a  full¬ 
ness  of  tone  which  makes  the  background  of  The  Burgomaster  Six 
weak  in  comparison.  And  he  knew  this. 

He  was  doing  his  own  printing  for  the  first  time  to  any  extent. 
There  were  a  hundred  prints  of  the  first  Venice  Set.  All  were  not 
pulled  by  him,  and  the  difference  between  his  printing  and  Goulding’s, 
done  after  his  death,  is  unmistakable.  In  the  hand  of  any  pro¬ 
fessional  printer  plates  like  The  Traghetto  and  The  Beggars  would 
be  a  mass  of  scratches,  though  scratches  of  interest  to  the  artist ; 
it  required  Whistler’s  printing  to  bring  out  what  he  wanted.  And 
it  is  the  more  surprising  that  he  could  print  in  Venice,  so  primitive 
was  the  press.  Bacher  had  a  portable  press,  but  most  was  done  on 
the  old  press.  Whistler  protested  against  the  professional  printer, 
his  pot  of  treacle  and  his  couches  of  ink.  But  no  great  artist  ever 
carried  the  printing  of  etchings  so  far  or  made  such  use  of  printer’s 
1879-80]  197 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

ink  as  he  did  in  these  plates.  Without  the  wash  of  ink,  they  would 
be  ghosts,  and  he  was  justified  in  printing  as  he  wanted  to  get  what 
he  wished.  And  he  used  ink  in  all  sorts  of  ways  on  the  same  plate, 
he  tried  endless  experiments  with  ever -varying  results,  even  to  cover 
up  the  weak  lines  of  an  indifferent  design,  as  in  Nocturne— Palaces, 
prized  highly  by  collectors,  but  one  of  his  poorest  Venice  plates.  It 
and  The  Garden,  Nocturne— Shipping,  and  one  or  two  besides  are  by 
no  means  equal  to  the  others  in  line,  though  some  of  his  prints  of 
these  are  superb.  But  there  are  no  such  perfect  plates  in  the  world  as 
The  Beggars,  The  Traghetto,  the  two  Rivas,  The  Bridge ,  and  Rialto. 

While  printing  Whistler  continually  worked  on  his  plates,  and 
instead  of  there  being— as  the  authorities  say— half  a  dozen  states 
there  are  a  hundred  ;  only  the  authorities  cannot  see.  A  curious 
fact  about  The  Traghetto  is  that  there  were  two  plates.  He  was 
displeased  with  the  first  and  etched  it  again.  Bacher  writes 
that  The  Traghetto  “troubled  him  very  much.”  He  pulled  one 
fine  proof  and  then  overworked  the  plate  so  that  he  had  to  make 
a  second.  He  got  copper  of  the  same  size  and  thickness  made 
by  the  Venetian  from  whom  they  had  their  plates.  When  this  was 
ready,  the  first  plate  was  inked  with  white  paint  instead  of  black  ink, 
and  passed  through  the  press.  This  was  placed  on  the  second  varnished 
plate,  which  was  then  run  through  the  press.  The  result  was  “  a 
replica  in  white  upon  the  black  etching  ground.”  Bacher  says  that 
on  the  new  plate  Whistler  worked  for  days  and  weeks  with  the  first 
proof  before  him,  that  he  might  find  and  etch  only  the  original  lines. 
When  the  second  was  printed  Whistler  placed  the  two  proofs  side  by 
side  and  minutely  compared  them.  And  he  was  pleased,  for  the 
examination  ended  in  the  one  song  he  allowed  himself  in  Venice  : 

"  We  don’t  want  to  fight, 

Bui,  by  jingo  !  if  we  do, 

We’ve  got  the  ships, 

We’ve  got  the  men, 

And  got  the  money  too-oo-oo  /  ” 


The  early  proofs  of  other  plates  were  unsatisfactory.  Each  proof 
was  a  trial,  and,  as  each  was  pulled,  he  worked  upon  the  plate,  not 
198  [1879—80 


Venice 


of  course  taking  out  large  slabs  or  putting  in  new  passages  to  make 
a  new  state  of  it,  but  strengthening  lines  or  lightening  them,  giving 
richness  to  a  shadow  or  modelling  to  a  little  figure.  It  would  be 
impossible,  if  the  hundred  proofs  of  each  of  these  Venetian  plates 
were  not  shown  together,  to  say  how  much  he  did  or  what  he  did  to 
each,  but  the  first  proof  is  quite  different  from  the  last  and  no  two  are 
alike.  Some  of  them,  from  ghosts,  became  solid  facts. 

In  his  Venice  etchings  Whistler  also  developed  what  he  called  the 
Japanese  method  of  drawing,  Bacher  calls  his  secret,  and  Mr.  Menpes 
the  secret  of  drawing.  Whistler  always  spoke  frankly  about  it  to  us, 
from  the  first  time  J.  saw  him  etching,  and  he  followed  the  same 
method  in  his  lithographs.  In  etching  or  lithography  it  is  difficult 
to  make  corrections,  the  surface  of  the  plate  or  the  stone  should  not 
be  disturbed,  it  is  not  easy,  by  the  ordinary  manner  in  which  drawing 
is  taught,  to  put  a  complicated  design  on  the  plate  without  elaborate 
spacing,  tracing,  or  a  preliminary  sketch.  Frequently,  when  the  design 
is  half  made  in  the  usual  fashion,  the  artist  finds  that  the  point  of  greatest 
interest,  the  subject  of  his  picture,  will  not  come  on  the  plate  where 
he  wants  it.  The  Japanese  always  seem  to  get  the  design  in  their 
colour-prints  in  the  right  place,  and  yet  their  technique  adds  to  the 
difficulty  of  changing  or  altering  a  design,  especially  in  their  wood 
blocks.  But  whether  this  is  because  they  have  the  method  of  drawing 
Whistler  attributed  to  them,  whether  he  got  his  idea  from  Japanese 
prints  or  evolved  it,  we  do  not  know.  We  do  know  that  the  idea 
was  his  long  before  he  painted  the  Japanese  pictures.  You  can  see 
the  beginning  of  it  in  the  Isle  de  la  Cite.  The  system,  scientific  as 
all  his  systems  were,  is  to  select  the  exact  spot  on  the  canvas,  the  litho¬ 
graphic  stone,  the  etching  plate,  or  the  piece  of  paper,  where  the  focus 
of  interest  is  to  be,  and  to  draw  this  part  of  the  subject  first.  It 
might  be  near  the  side  of  a  plate,  though  he  insisted  that  the  compo¬ 
sition  should  be  placed  well  within  the  frame  or  on  the  plate,  contrary 
as  such  treatment  is  to  Japanese  methods  and  his  early  practice.  In 
the  early  paintings,  sprays  of  flowers  or  branches  of  trees  run  into 
the  picture  to  give  the  impression  that  it  is  carried  beyond  the  frame, 
as  the  Japanese  do.  But  his  theory,  perfected  before  the  Venetian 
period  and  adhered  to  as  long  as  he  lived,  was  that  everything  should 
be  well  within  the  frame  or  plate  mark,  as  far  within  as  the  subject 
1879-80]  l99 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

was  from  him.  Having  selected  the  point  of  interest,  he  drew  that, 
and  drew  it  completely,  and  there,  on  his  canvas,  plate,  or  stone,  was  a 
picture.  It  might  be  a  distant  view  of  palaces  or  shipping  beneath 
a  bridge ;  in  London,  a  shop  window ;  in  Paris,  a  dark  doorway ;  in 
portraits,  the  sitter  s  head.  Once  he  put  it  down,  he  drew  in  the 
objects  next  in  importance,  all  the  while  carrying  out  the  work  com¬ 
pletely  and  making  one  harmonious  whole.  The  result  was  that  the 
picture  was  finished  finished  from  the  beginning  ” — .and  there  was 
on  the  plate,  paper,  or  stone  a  space  which  he  could  fill  with  less 
important  details  or  leave  as  he  chose.  With  his  painting  it  was  a 
different  problem.  When  the  subject  was  arranged,  it  grew  together 
all  over,  at  the  same  time.  In  some  of  the  earlier  pictures,  Old  Battersea 
Bridge  for  example,  a  piece  of  canvas  seems  to  have  been  added,  though 
he  maintained  that  the  artist  should  confine  himself  to  the  size  of 
the  canvas  he  selected,  and  not  get  over  his  blunders,  as  many  do, 
by  adding  to  or  taking  from  the  canvas.  All  this  requires  the 
greatest  care  in  just  what  Whistler  considered  most  important,  the 
placing  of  the  subject.  Working  in  this  manner,  always  with  the 
completed  picture  in  his  mind,  he  could  return  again,  add  further 
work  if  he  thought  it  was  needed,  knowing  he  had  his  subject  drawn. 
It  sounds  simple,  so  simple  that  one  day,  when  he  had  been  explaining 
k  to  Mr.  E.  A.  Walton,  and  the  latter  said,  "  But  there  is  no  secret  !  ” 
Whistler’s  answer  was,  “  Yes,  the  secret  is  in  doing  it.”  It  is  just 
this,  in  doing  it,”  that  the  excellence  of  his  work  lies.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  the  difficulty  is  restraint  in  drawing  the  heart  of  a  subject, 
while  in  painting  still  more  restraint  is  necessary,  the  restraint  imposed 
by  colour.  ' 

Besides  etchings  and  pastels  Whistler  made  water-colours  in  Venice, 
but  as  they  were  never  shown  together  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  many! 
There  were  also  a  few  oils.  The  most  important  is  Nocturne ,  Blue 
and  Gold,  St.  Mark's.  Bacher  speaks  of  one  from  the  windows  of  the 
Casa  Jankovitz,  “  the  Salute  and  a  great  deal  of  sky  and  water,  with 
the  buildings  very  small,”  and  of  a  scene  at  night  from  a  cafe  near  the 
Royal  Gardens.  Then  there  is  the  upright  sunset  from  the  Riva 
referred  to  by  Mr.  Pennington,  and  two  others  painted  from  Mr. 
Ross  Turner  s  terrace,  one  looking  down  the  Riva  to  San  Biagio,  the 
other  up  to  San  Marco,  both  full  of  little  figures,  and  with  boats  and 
200  [1879-80 


PORTRAIT  OF  SIR  HENRY  IRVING  AS 
PHILIP  If  OF  SPAIN 

ARRANGEMENT  IN  BLACK.  NO.  Ill 


OIL 

In  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  New  York 
( Seepage  143) 


Back  in  London 


a  suggestion  of  the  Lagoon,  in  the  background  ;  studies  left  hanging 
in  sunlight  after  he  had  done  one  day’s  work  until  he  came  to  do  the 
next.  Mr.  Forbes  recalls  a  Nocturne  oj  the  Giudecca,  with  shipping, 
on  a  panel,  which  Whistler  gave  to  Jobbins,  who,  as  he  told  us,  thought 
so  little  of  it  that  he  painted  a  sketch  on  the  back  and  then  sold  it  to 
Forbes,  who  still  has  it.  Mr.  Canfield  is  said  to  have  another  of 
S.  Giorgio.  Doubtless  there  are  more,  but  we  know  of  none  that 
were  exhibited. 


CHAPTER  XXIII:  BACK  IN  LONDON.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY  AND  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-ONE. 

At  the  end  of  November  1880  Whistler  was  back  in  London.  “  Years 
of  battle,”  M.  Duret  calls  the  period  that  followed,  and  Whistler  was 
ready  to  fight. 

He  arrived  when  the  Fine  Art  Society  had  a  show  of  “  Twelve 
Great  Etchers,”  a  press  was  in  the  gallery,  Goulding  was  printing, 
etching  was  upon  the  town. 

“  Well,  you  know,  I  was  just  home  ;  nobody  had  seen  me,  and 
I  drove  up  in  a  hansom.  Nobody  expected  me.  In  one  hand  I  held 
my  long  cane  ;  with  the  other  I  led  by  a  ribbon  a  beautiful  little  white 
Pomeranian  dog  ;  it  too  had  turned  up  suddenly.  As  I  walked  in 
I  spoke  to  no  one,  but  putting  up  my  glass  I  looked  at  the  prints  on 
the  wall.  '  Dear  me  !  dear  me  !  ’  I  said,  ‘  still  the  same  old  sad  work  ! 
Dear  me  !  ’  And  Haden  was  there,  talking  hard  to  Brown,  and  laying 
down  the  law,  and  as  he  said  ‘  Rembrandt,’  I  said  ‘  Ha  ha  !  ’  and  he 
vanished,  and  then — —  !  ” 

He  was  without  house  or  studio,  and  stopped  in  Wimpole  Street 
with  his  brother  until  he  took  lodgings  in  Langham  Street  and  then 
in  Alderney  Street.  (The  record  of  this  is  in  the  etching  published 
in  the  Gazette  des  Beaux-Arts,  April  1881.)  He  set  to  work  printing 
the  plates,  for  few  had  been  pulled  in  Venice.  The  Fine  Art  Society 
moved  Goulding’s  press  upstairs  and  friends  came  to  see  him,  and  here 
Mr.  Mortimer  Menpes  says  he  first  met  Whistler,  and,  dropping 
Poynter,  South  Kensington,  and  his  ambition,  threw  himself  at  the 
feet  of  “the  Master”  and  called  himself  pupil.  It  was  not  an  ideal 
1880]  201 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

workshop,  and  the  Fine  Art  Society  took  two  rooms  for  Whistler  in 
Air  Street,  Regent  Street,  on  the  first  floor,  with  a  bow  window  under 
the  colonnade  :  the  window  from  which  he  etched  the  plate  of  the  now 
demolished  Quadrant. 

Mr.  T.  Way  and  his  son  came  to  Air  Street  to  help  Whistler  print. 
The  press  was  in  the  front  room,  and  T.  R.  Way  made  a  sketch  of  it 
in  colour,  his  father  damping  paper,  Whistler  inking  a  plate,  the  press 
between  them  :j  an  interesting  document.  The  work  was  interrupted 
by  excitement.  One  day  Whistler  placed  on  his  heater  a  bottle  of 
acid  tightly  stopped  up.  The  stopper  blew  out,  steaming  acid  fumes 
filled  the  room,  and  they  ran  for  their  lives.  Another  time,  they  took 
caustic  potash,  or  something  as  deadly,  to  get  the  dried  ink  out  of  the 
lines  of  the  plates,  and  they  dropped  the  bottle  on  the  floor,  and  there 
was  not  much  left  of  the  carpet.  Why  anything  was  left  of  the  floor 
or  of  them  is  a  mystery.  Then,  Mr.  Menpes  says  : 

“  Whistler  drifted  into  a  room  in  my  house,  which  I  had 
fitted  up  with  printing  materials,  and  it  was  in  this  little  printing- 
room  of  mine  that  most  of  the  series  of  Venetian  etchings  were 
printed.’’ 

The  edition  of  a  hundred  sets  was,  however,  not  completed  during 
Whistler’s  lifetime.  It  was  only  after  his  death  that  Goulding  finished 
the  work. 

The  first  series  of  twelve  Venetian  plates  was  shown  in  December 
1880  at  the  Fine  Art  Society’s.  The  Twelve  were  selected  from  the 
forty  plates  Whistler  brought  back.  The  critics  could  see  nothing 
in  them.  They  were  dismissed  as  “  another  crop  of  Whistler’s  little 
jokes.”  One  after  another  the  people’s  authorities  repeated  the 
Attorney-General’s  decision  that  Whistler  was  amusing,  and  Burne- 
Jones’  regret  that  he  had  not  fulfilled  his  early  promise,  and  Whistler 
collected  the  criticisms  for  future  use. 

Mr.  Brown,  of  the  Fine  Art  Society,  took  to  New  York  a  set  of  the 
Venice  proofs.  Whistler  spent  a  Sunday  pulling  the  prints.  But  the 
etchings  were  no  more  appreciated  in  New  York  than  in  London. 
Only  eight  sets  were  ordered. 

In  the  meanwhile  Whistler  was  preparing  his  exhibition  of  pastels. 
Mr.  Cole  notes  in  his  diary  : 

“January  2  (1881).  Jimmy  called,  as  self-reliant  and  sure  as 
202  [1880 


Back  in  London 

ever,  full  of  confidence  in  the  superlative  merit  of  his  pastels,  which 
we  are  to  go  and  see.” 

This  exhibition  also  was  held  at  the  Fine  Art  Society’s.  Whistler 
designed  the  frames ;  he  wrote  the  catalogue,  which  had  the  brown  paper 
cover,  but  not  quite  the  form  eventually  adopted,  and  it  was  printed 
by  Way  ;  he  decorated  the  gallery,  an  arrangement  in  gold  and  brown, 
which  was  enjoyed  as  another  of  his  little  jokes  by  the  critics. 
Godwin  was  one  of  the  few  who  admitted  the  beauty,  and  his  description 
in  the  British  Architect  (February  1881)  is  on  record  :  . 

“  First3  a  low  skirting  of  yellow  gold,  then  a  high  dado  of  dull 
yellow-green  cloth,  then  a  moulding  of  green  gold,  and  then  a  frieze 
and  ceiling  of  pale  reddish  brown.  The  frames  are  arranged  on  the 
line  ;  but  here  and  there  one  is  placed  over  another.  Most  of  the 
frames  and  mounts  are  of  rich  yellow  gold,  but  a  dozen  out  of 
the  fifty-three  are  in  green  gold,  dotted  about  with  a  view  of  decora¬ 
tion,  and  eminently  successful  in  attaining  it.” 

On  the  evening  of  the  Press  view  Mr.  Cole  says  : 

“January  28  (1881).  Whistler  turned  up  for  dinner  very  full  of 
his  private  view  to-morrow.  Later  on,  we  concocted  a  letter  inviting 
Prince  Teck  to  come  to  it.  His  last  draft  was  all  right,  but  he 
would  insist  on  beginning  it  '  Prince,’  although  I  assured  him  ‘  Sir  ’ 
was  the  usual  way  of  addressing  him  in  a  letter.” 

The  private  view  (January  29)  was  a  crush,  Bond  Street  blocked 
with  carriages,  the  sidewalk  crowded  ;  nothing  like  it  was  ever  known 
at  the  Fine  Art  Society’s.  Millais,  showing  forgotten  machines  in 
the  adjoining  room,  was  one  of  the  first  to  see  the  pastels.  “  Magni¬ 
ficent,  fine  ;  very  cheeky,  but  fine  !  ”  he  bellowed,  and  afterwards 
said  so  to  Whistler,  who  was  pleased.  The  crowd  did  not  know  what 
to  say,  and,  had  they  known,  would  have  been  afraid  to  say  it.  For 
Whistler  was  there,  his  laugh  louder,  shriller  than  ever.  He  let  no 
one  forget  the  trial.  An  admirer  asked  the  price  of  a  pastel :  “  Sixty 
guineas !  That’s  enormous !  ”  Whistler  heard,  though  he  was  not 
meant  to  ;  he  heard  everything.  “  Ha  ha  !  Enormous  !  Why,  not 
at  all !  I  can  assure  you  it  took  me  quite  half  an  hour  to  do  it  !  ” 
People  laughed  at  Whistler’s  work,  because  they  thought  they  were 
expected  to.  Because  he  was  the  gayest  man  they  refused  to  see 
that  he  was  the  most  serious  artist  who  ever  lived.  When  they 
1881]  203 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

laughed  at  his  art,  it  hurt,  but  he  had  his  revenge  in  mystifying 
them  : 

“  Well,  you  know,  they  thought  it  was  an  amiability  to  me  for  them 
to  be  amused.  One  day,  when  I  was  on  my  way  to  the  Fine  Art 

Society’s,  while  the  show  was  going  on,  I  met  Sir  and  Lady - — 

face  to  face,  at  the  door,  as  they  were  coming  out.  Both  looked  very 
much  bored,  but  they  couldn’t  escape  me.  So  the  old  man  grasped 
my  hand  and  chuckled,  '  We  have  just  been  looking  at  your  things, 
and  have  been  so  much  amused  !  ’  He  had  an  idea  that  the  drawings 
on  the  wall  were  drolleries  of  some  sort,  though  he  could  not  under¬ 
stand  why,  and  that  it  was  his  duty  to  be  amused.  I  laughed  with 
him.  I  always  did  with  people  of  that  kind,  and  then  they  said  I  was 
not  serious.” 

The  critics,  too,  laughed,  but  there  was  venom  in  their  laughter. 
1  hey  liked  to  take  themselves,  if  they  couldn’t  take  Whistler,  seriously, 
and  they  hated  work  they  could  not  understand.  The  pastels  were 
sensational,  Whistler  was  clever  with  a  sort  of  transatlantic  impudence. 
They  objected  to  the  brown  paper,  to  the  technique,  to  the  frames, 
to  the  decorations,  to  the  subjects ;  they  became  unexpectedly  con¬ 
cerned  for  the  past  glory  of  Venice.  Godwin,  again,  was  an  exception. 
“  No  one  who  has  listened,  as  the  writer  of  these  notes  has,  to  Whistler’s 
descriptions  of  the  open-arcaded,  winding  staircase  that  lifts  its  tall 
stem  far  into  the  blue  sky,  or  of  the  facades,  yet  unrestored,  that  speak 
of  the  power  of  the  Venetian  architect,  can  doubt  that  he  who  can  so 
remember  and  describe  has  failed  to  admire.  It  is  by  reason  of  the 
strength  of  this  admiration  and  appreciation  that  he  holds  back  in 
reverence,  and  exercises  this  reticence  of  the  pencil,  the  needle,  and 
the  brush.” 

A  number  of  people  showed  their  belief  in  the  pastels  by  buying 
them,  and  the  exhibition  was  a  success  financially.  The  prices  ranged 
from  twenty  to  sixty  guineas,  the  total  receipts  amounted  to  eighteen 
hundred  pounds.  Bacher  quotes  a  letter  written  to  him  just  after  the 
show  opened  signed  “  Maud  Whistler  ”  :  “  The  best  of  it  is,  all  the 
pastels  are  selling.  Four  hundred  pounds’ worth  the  first  day;  now 
over  a  thousand  pounds’  worth  are  sold.” 

Before  the  show  closed,  at  the  end  of  January,  Whistler  was 
summoned  to  Hastings.  His  mother  had  been  there  since  her  illness 
204  [1881 


PORTRAIT  OF  SIR  HENRY  COLE 
oil  (destroyed) 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  Pickford  R.  Waller,  Esq. 


(See  page  144) 


Back  in  London 

of  1876-77,  from  which  she  never  entirely  recovered,  though  there 
were  intervals  between  the  attacks  when  her  family  had  no  cause  for 
anxiety.  But  her  death  was  sudden.  Those  who  refused  to  see  m 
Whistler  any  other  good  quality  could  not  deny  his  devotion  to  his 
mother  ;  those  to  whom  he  revealed  the  tenderness  under  the  defiant 
masque  with  which  he  faced  the  world  knew  what  his  love  for  her 
meant  to  him.  She  had  lived  with  him  whenever  it  was  possible. 
His  visits  and  letters  to  Hastings  had  been  frequent.  He  never  forgot 
her  birthday.  He  told  her  of  all  his  success,  all  his  hopes,  and.  made 
as  light  as  he  could  of  his  debts  and  disappointments.  But  in  the 
miserable  week  before  the  funeral  at  Hastings  he  was  full  of  remorse  ; 
he  should  have  been  kinder  and  more  considerate,  he  said  ;  he  had  not 
written  often  enough  from  Venice.  Dr.  Whistler  was  with  him  part 
of  the  time,  and  the  Doctor’s  wife  the  rest.  In  the  afternoons  they 
wandered  on  the  windy  cliffs  above  the  town,  and  there  was  one  drear 
afternoon  when  he  broke  down  :  “  It  would  have  been  better  had  1 
been  a  parson  as  she  wanted  !  ”  Yet  he  had  nothing  to  reproach 
himself  with.  The  days  in  Chelsea  were  for  her  as  happy  as  for  him, 
and  she  whose  pride  had  been  in  his  first  childish  promise  at 
St.  Petersburg  lived  to  see  the  development  of  his  powers.  She  is 
buried  at  Hastings. 

It  was  fortunate  that  when  he  got  back  to  town  there  were  events 
to  distract  his  thoughts.  The  Society  of  Painter-Etchers  opened 
their  first  exhibition  in  April  at  the  Hanover  Gallery.  American 
artists  who  were  just  starting  etching  and  had  never  shown  prints  m 
London  were  invited.  Mr.  Frank  Duveneck  sent  a  series  of  Venetian 
prints.  This  was  the  occasion  of  “  the  storm  in  an  aesthetic  teapot, 
which,  had  not  Whistler  thought  it  important  as  “  history,”  would 
be  forgotten.  We  quote,  as  he  did,  from  The  Cuckoo  (April  n, 

1881):  .  ,  ,  .  , 

“  Some  etchings,  exceedingly  like  Mr.  Whistler  s  in  manner,,  but 

signed  ‘  Frank  Duveneck,’  were  sent  to  the  Painter-Etchers’  Exhibition 
from  Venice.  The  Painter -Etchers  appear  to  have  suspected  for  a 
moment  that  the  works  were  really  Mr.  Whistler’s,  and,  not  desiring 
to  be  the  victims  of  an  easy  hoax  on  the  part  of  that  gentleman,  three 
of  their  members -Dr.  Seymour  Haden,  Dr.  Hamilton,^  and  Mr. 
Legros— went  to  the  Fine  Art  Society’s  Gallery  in  Bond  Street,  and 

1881]  205 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

asked  one  of  the  assistants  there  to  show  them  some  of  Mr.  Whistler’s 
Venetian  plates.  From  this  assistant  they  learned  that  Mr.  Whistler 
was  under  an  arrangement  to  exhibit  and  sell  his  Venetian  etchings 
only  at  the  Fine  Art  Society’s  Gallery.” 

Whistler  heard  of  this.  He  called  on  Mr.  Cole,  “  highly  incensed 
with  Haden  and  Legros  conspiring  to  make  out  he  was  breaking  his 
contract  with  the  Fine  Art  Society,”  and  went  at  once  to  the  Hanover 
Gallery,  Mr.  Menpes  with  him.  The  three  members  fortunately 
were  not  there.  Then  Haden  wrote  to  the  Fine  Art  Society  that  they 
had  found  out  about  Mr.  Duveneck  and  said  they  were  delighted 
with  his  etchings,  and  expressed  regret.  But  it  is  incredible  that 
Haden  and  Legros  should  have  mistaken  the  work  of  Duveneck  for 
that  of  Whistler.  The  story  was  published  by  Whistler  in  Fhe  Piker 
Papers.  With  its  interest  a  little  dulled  by  time,  the  correspondence 
may  be  read  in  The  Gentle  Art. 

Whistler  had  not  forgotten  the  pictures  left  with  Graves  in 
Pall  Mall.  By  degrees  he  bought  them  back.  When  Mr.  Algernon 
Graves  consulted  his  father  about  letting  Whistler  have  the  pictures 
upon  which  the  full  amount  was  not  paid,  after  Whistler  had  repaid 
a  hundred  pounds  for  three,  the  father  said,  “  Let  him  take  the  whole 
lot,  and  don’t  be  a  fool ;  the  pictures  aren’t  worth  twenty-five  pounds 
apiece.”  The  Rosa  Carder  was  sold  at  Christie’s  with  Howell’s  effects, 
Mr.  Algernon  Graves  agreeing  that,  if  it  brought  more  than  Howell’s 
debt  to  the  firm,  Howell’s  executors  could  have  the  balance.  The 
father  maintained  the  picture  wouldn’t  fetch  ten  pounds,  but  it  brought 
more  than  the  amount  of  their  bill,  some  hundred  and  thirty  pounds. 
The  Irving  was  sold  to  Sir  Henry  for  a  hundred  pounds,  and  the  Miss 
Franklin  went  to  Messrs.  Dowdeswell.  Whistler  continued  to  pay 
his  bills  regularly  as  they  came  due,  to  Graves’  astonishment ;  there 
was  only  one  exception,  and  then  Whistler  came  to  ask  to  have  the 
payment  postponed,  and  this  was  not  settled  until  long  after  the  pictures 
were  in  Whistler’s  possession.  When  Whistler  paid  the  final  instalment 
Graves  expressed  his  surprise.  But  Whistler  said  :  “  You  have  been 
a  very  good  friend  to  me  ;  in  fact,  you  have  been  my  banker.  You 
have  acted  honourably  to  me  in  the  whole  matter.  1  meant  to  pay, 
and  I  have  done  so.” 

These  business  details  and  his  exhibitions  left  Whistler  no  time 
20 6  [1881 


Back  in  London 

in  1 88 1  for  the  Salon,  where  he  had  nothing,  or  for  the  Grosvenor,  to 
which  he  sent  only  Miss  Alexander.  In  the  autumn,  borrowing  the 
Mother  from  Graves,  he  lent  it  to  the  Academy  in  Philadelphia,  the 
arrangements  being  made  by  Mrs.  Anna  Lea  Merritt,  and  this  is 
her  account : 

“  In  the  autumn  of  1881  I  was  asked  by  the  Pennsylvania  Academy 
of  Fine  Arts  to  receive  pictures  by  American  artists,  and  have  them 
forwarded  for  exhibition,  and  especially  they  entreated  me  to  persuade 
Mr.  Whistler  to  send  a  picture.  He  had  never  been  represented  in 
any  American  exhibition.  I  obtained  a  chance  when  meeting  him 
at  a  dinner  of  pressing  the  subject  more  vigorously  than  I  could  have 
done  by  writing,  and  he  promised  to  send  his  mother’s  portrait.  It 
was  collected  in  due  course  and  deposited  in  my  studio,  then  in  the 
Avenue.  Mr.  Whistler  came  immediately  after,  and  as  the  canvas 
was  breaking  away  from  the  stretcher,  he  directed  the  packing  agents, 
who  were  skilful  frame-makers,  to  restrain  it,  and  then  left  me.  As 
soon  as  the  canvas  was  made  tight,  spots  of  crushed  varnish  appeared 
on  the  surface.  The  varnish,  in  fact,  broke  or  crumbled  and  I  feared 
the  canvas  might  have  broken.  I  flew  down  the  street,  overtook  him, 
and  brought  him  back,  dreading  that  he  would  blame  us  and  even 
that  some  injury  had  been  done.  To  my  surprise,  he  took  the  mis¬ 
fortune  with  perfect  composure  and  kindness,  and  stippled  the  spots 
with  some  solvent  varnish  that  soon  restored  the  even  surface.  And 
there  was  never  a  word  of  suggestion  that  we  had  done  any  harm. 
Of  course,  I  knew  the  fault  was  not  in  anything  that  had  been  done, 
and  it  was  by  his  own  order,  but  from  all  I  had  heard  about  him  I 
trembled.  The  greatest  difficulty  in  connection  with  that  exhibition 
was  to  persuade  him  to  journey  to  the  American  Consulate  in  St.  Helen’s 
Place  and  make  his  affidavit  for  the  invoice.  It  had  to  be  done  by 
himself ;  and  it  was  not  pleasant,  as  we  know,  to  waste  a  day,  the  very 
middle  of  the  day,  in  this  dull  declaration  of  American  citizen 
sojourning  in  England.  After  the  cases  were  ready  for  shipment  there 
was  still  delay  to  get  his  task  accomplished,  and  I  think  the 
Pennsylvania  Academy  hardly  guess  how  much  persuading  it  took. 
What  a  pity  they  did  not  secure  the  beautiful  picture  for  his  own 
country !  Now  that  it  hangs  in  the  Luxembourg,  they  envy  it.” 

The  Mother  was  exhibited  at  the  Pennsylvania  Academy  in  1 88 1, 
1881]  207 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

and,  on  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Alden  Weir,  at  the  Society  of  American 
Artists  in  New  York  in  1882,  and  it  could  have  been  bought  for  a 
thousand  dollars.  Although  nobody  wanted  it,  it  made  him  known 
in  his  own  country  as  a  painter.  He  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
Society  of  American  Artists  that  year. 

At  this  time,  owing  to  the  visit  of  Seymour  Haden  to  the  United 
States,  American  artists  became  interested  in  etching  and  societies 
were  formed  and  exhibitions  held  all  over  the  country.  There  was 
a  show  in  the  Boston  Museum  in  1881.  Another,  the  first  of  a  series, 
was  given  by  the  New  York  Etching  Club  in  1882.  And  the  Phila¬ 
delphia  Society  of  Etchers  organised  in  the  same  year  an  International 
Exhibition  at  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts.  Articles  in  Scribner's  on 
Whistler  and  Haden  and  American  Etchers  added  to  the  interest.  Messrs. 
Cassell  and  others  issued  portfolios  of  prints,  and  every  painter  became 
an  etcher.  The  result  was  a  boom,  then  a  slump,  out  of  which  Whistler 
and  Haden  almost  alone  emerged,  for  the  reason  that  their  work  was 
not  done  to  please  the  public  or  the  publishers.  We  remember  the 
excitement  made  by  Haden’s  lectures  which  prepared  America  for 
Whistler,  whose  prints  were  in  both  the  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
Exhibitions.  Mr.  James  L.  Claghorn,  almost  the  only  Philadelphian 
who  then  cared  for  etchings,  had  already  many  Whistlers.  Mr.  Avery,  in 
New  York,  had  some  years  before  begun  his  collection  and  secured  for  it 
many  of  the  rarest  proofs,  and  he  was  followed  by  Mr.  Howard  Mansfield, 
who  later  on  interested  Mr.  Charles  L.  Freer.  But  in  America  more 
had  been  heard  of  Whistler’s  eccentricities  than  his  work.  It  could 
no  longer  remain  unknown,  once  his  etchings  and  the  portrait  of  the 
Mother  were  seen  and  The  White  Girl  was  lent  to  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  in  New  York,  where  it  hung  for  some  time.  And  the  young 
men  who  had  been  with  him  in  Venice,  coming  back,  spread  his  fame 
at  home,  and  when  Americans  got  to  know  his  work  they  became 
the  keenest  to  possess  it.  Even  at  this  time  Avery  owned  the  Whistler 
in  the  Big  Hat ,  Mr.  Whittemore  The  White  Girl,  and  Mrs.  Hutton 
the  Wapping.  That  an  American  artist’s  works  should  be  bought  at 
all  by  Americans  at  that  date  was  extraordinary.  T adema,  Bouguereau, 
Meyer  von  Bremen  were  the  standard,  soon,  however,  to  be 
exchanged  for  Whistler,  the  Impressionists,  and  the  Dutch  and 
Barbizon  Schools. 

208 


[1881-2 


PORTRAIT  OF  MISS  ROSA  CORDER 
ARRANGEMENT  IN  BLACK  AND  BROWN 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Richard  A.  Canfield,  Esq. 


( See  -bape  ij.;) 


The  Joy  of  Life 

CHAPTER  XXIV :  THE  JOY  OF  LIFE.  THE  YEARS  EIGH¬ 
TEEN  EIGHTY-ONE  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-FOUR. 

On  May  26,  1881,  Mr.  Cole  “  met  Jimmie,  who  is  taking  a  new  studio 
in  Tite  Street,  where  he  is  going  to  paint  all  the  fashionables j  views 
of  crowds  competing  for  sittings ;  carriages  along  the  streets.” 

It  was  No.  13,  close  to  the  White  House.  Whistler  decorated  it 
in  yellow  :  one  “  felt  in  it  as  if  standing  inside  an  egg,”  Howell  said. 
He  again  picked  up  blue  and  white,  and  old  silver  ;  he  again  gave  Sunday 
breakfasts,  and  they  again  became  the  talk  of  the  town  and  he  the 
fashion.  If  the  town  was  determined  to  talk,  Whistler  was  willing 
it  should.  He  was  never  so  malicious,  never  so  extravagant,  never 
so  joyous.  He  wrapped  himself  “  in  a  species  of  misundei standing. 
He  filled  the  papers  with  letters.  London  echoed  with  his  laugh. 
His  white  lock  stood  up  defiantly  above  his  curls  ;  his  cane  lengthened  , 
a  series  of  collars  sprang  from  his  long  overcoat;  his  hat  had  a  curliei 
brim,  a  lower  tilt  over  his  eyes  ;  he  invented  amazing  costumes  : 
“  in  great  form,  with  a  new  fawn-coloured  long-skirted  frock-coat, 
and  extraordinary  long  cane,”  Mr.  Cole  found  him  one  summer  day 
in  1882.  He  was  known  to  pay  calls  with  the  long  bamboo  stick  in 
his  hand  and  pink  bows  on  his  shoes.  He  allowed  no  break  in  the 
gossip.  The  carriages  brought  crowds,  but  not  sitters.  Few  would 
sit  to  him  before  the  trial ;  after  it  there  were  fewer.  In  the  seventies 
it  needed  courage  to  be  painted  by  Whistler  ;  now  it  was  to  risk 
notoriety  and  ridicule.  Lady  Meux  was  the  first  to  give  him  a  com¬ 
mission.  Two  of  his  three  large  full-lengths  of  her  are  amongst,  his 
most  distinguished  portraits.  She  was  handsome,  of  a  luxuriant 
type,  her  full-blown  beauty  a  contrast  to  the  elusive  loveliness  of 
Maud  in  the  Fur  Jacket ,  or  Mrs.  Leyland,  or  Mrs.  Huth.  Whistler 
found  appropriate  harmonies.  One  was  an  Arrangement  in  White  and 
Black.  There  is  a  sumptuousness  in  the  velvet  gown  and  the  long 
cloak  he  never  surpassed,  and  the  firm  modelling  of  the  face,  neck, 
and  arms  gives  to  the  regal  figure  more  solidity  than  he  ever  got  before. 
Whistler  was  pleased  with  it,  spoke  of  it  as  his  “  beautiful  Black  Lady,” 
and  L^dy  Meux  was  so  well  pleased  that  she  posed  a  second  time. 
In  this,  the  Harmony  in  Flesh  Colour  and  Pink ,  afterwards  changed  to 
Pink  and  Grey,  she  wears  a  round  hat  low  over  her  face,  and  a  pink 
1881-2]  o  209 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

bodice  and  skirt,  and  stands  against  a  pink  background,  and  the  ugly 
fashion  of  the  day  cannot  conceal  the  beauty.  The  third  portrait, 
as  far  as  we  can  find  out,  was  never  finished.  Mr.  Walter  Dowdeswell 
has  a  pen-and-ink  drawing  of  it.  She  wears  a  fur  cap,  a  sable  coat, 
and  carries  a  muff.  For  this,  it  is  said,  after  the  difference,  a  maid 
posed  and  Whistler  painted  her  face  over  the  Lady’s.  Mr.  Harper 
Pennington  says  :  “  The  only  time  I  saw  Jimmy  stumped  for  a  reply  was 
at  a  sitting  of  Lady  Meux  (for  the  portrait  in  sables).  For  some  reason 
Jimmy  became  nervous,  exasperated,  and  impertinent.  Touched  by 
something  he  had  said,  her  ladyship  turned  softly  towards  him,  and 
remarked,  quite  softly,  ‘  See  here,  Jimmy  Whistler  !  You  keep  a  civil 
tongue  in  that  head  of  yours,  or  I  will  have  in  some  one  to  finish  those 
portraits  you  have  made  of  me  !  ’  with  the  faintest  emphasis  on  ‘  finish.’ 
Jimmy  fairly  danced  with  rage.  He  came  up  to  Lady  Meux,  his 
long  brush  tightly  grasped,  and  actually  quivering  in  his  hand,  held 
tight  against  his  side.  He  stammered,  spluttered,  and  finally  gasped 
out,  ‘  How  dare  you  ?  How  dare  you  ?  ’  but  that,  after  all,  was  not 
an  answer,  was  it  ?  Lady  Meux  did  not  sit  again.  Jimmy  never 
spoke  of  the  incident  afterwards,  and  I  was  sorry  to  have  witnessed  it.” 

At  the  time  of  the  London  Memorial  Exhibition  Lady  Meux 
offered  the  Committee  the  two  portraits  in  her  possession  on  condition 
that  the  third  should  be  returned  to  her.  This  the  Committee  were 
unable  to  do,  and  it  was  not  until  her  will  was  published  after  her  death, 
in  January  1911,  in  which  she  bequeathed  the  missing  picture  and  the 
correspondence  relating  to  it  to  the  National  Gallery,  that  any  more 
was  heard  about  it.  Then  a  statement  appeared  in  a  New  York 
paper  that  the  portrait  was  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Freer,  and  Miss 
Birnie  Philip  stated  in  the  Times  that  Whistler  had  destroyed  the  picture 
which,  according  to  Lady  Meux  in  her  will,  “was  ordered  and  paid 
for  by  her  husband,  but  it  had  never  come  into  his  possession  nor  could 
it  be  found.” 

Sir  Henry  Cole  posed  for  a  second  portrait  and  Whistler  got  back 
from  Mr.  Way  the  first,  discovered  in  one  of  the  rolls  of  canvases  he 
bought  at  the  sale.  Mr.  Cole  saw  the  second  portrait  in  the  studio  : 

“  February  26  (1882).  Found  his  commencement  of  my  father, 
good  but  slight,  full  length,  evening  clothes,  long  dark  cloak  thrown 
back,  red  ribbon  of  Bath.” 


210 


[1882 


The  Joy  of  Life 

“  April  17  (1882).  In  spite  of  his  illness,  my  father  to  Whistler’s, 
who  fretted  him  by  not  painting  ;  my  father  thought  that  Jimmy 
had  merely  touched  the  light  on  his  shoes,  and  nothing  else,  although 
he  stood  and  sat  for  over  an  hour  and  a  half.” 

This  was  the  last  sitting.  The  next  day  Sir  Henry  Cole  died 
suddenly  :  a  distinguished  official  lost  to  England,  a  friend  lost  to 
Whistler.  Eldon,  an  artist  much  with  Whistler  at  the  time,  was  in 
the  studio  on  the  17th,  and  recalled  afterwards  that  Sir  Henry  Cole  s 
last  words  on  leaving  were,  “  Death  waits  for  no  man  !  Whistler 
meant  to  go  on  with  the  portrait.  On  May  2  Mr.  Cole  went  again 
to  Tite  Street  :  “  After  a  long  delay,  Jimmy  showed  me  his  painting 

of  my  father,  which  J.  can  make  into  a  very  good  thing.” 

It  is  said  not  to  have  been  finished,  but  we  possess  a  photograph 
of  it  which  shows  no  want  of  finish.  This  also,  Mr.  Cole  was  informed, 
Whistler  destroyed.  Neither  was  a  full-length  of  Eldon  finished  : 
a  fine  thing,  to  judge  from  the  photograph  we  have  seen.  It  also  has 
vanished,  though  a  small  half-length,  sent  to  the  London  Memorial 
Exhibition,  but  not  hung— it  may  be  a  copy— is  now  in  New  York. 
During  the  next  few  years  other  portraits  were  begun,  and  of  several 
we  have  photographs  which  it  is  not  possible  to  identify.  An  Arrange¬ 
ment  in  Vellozov/zs  of  Mrs.  Langtry,  dor  a  new  version  of  his  scheme 
of  “blue  upon  blue”  Miss  Maud  Waller  posed.  Mrs.  Marzetti,  her 
sister,  who  went  with  her  to  the  studio,  writes  : 

“The  sittings  commenced  in  the  early  part  of  1882.  We  went 
two  or  three  times,  and  then  Whistler  painted  the  face  out,  as  it  was 
not  to  his  liking,  although  most  people  thought  it  excellent.  In  those 
days  Maud  was  very  beautiful.  The  picture  was  started  on  a  canvas 
that  already  had  a  figure  on  it,  and  it  was  turned  upside  down,  and 
the  Blue  Girl’s  head  painted  in  between  the  legs.  The  dress  was  made 
by  Mme.  Alias,  the  theatrical  costumier,  to  Whistler’s  design,  and 
I  believe  cost  a  good  deal.  In  the  end  the  picture  was  finished  from 
another  model  (I  do  not  know  who),  and  was  hung  in  one  of  Whistler’s 
exhibitions  in  Bond  Street  [Notes,  Harmonies ,  Nocturnes ,  May 
1884,  at  DowdesweU’s]  :  it  is  No.  31  in  the  catalogue,  and  called 
Scherzo  in  Blue- — A  he  Blue  Girl,  This  was  the  same  exhibition  in 
which  he  hung  the  picture  he  gave  me,  and  which  in  the  end  I  never 
eot  (No.  66,  Bravura  in  Brown),  I  should  have  treasured  it  for  two 
1882J  211 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

reasons  :  Whistler’s  painting,  and  also  that  it  was  a  portrait  of  Mr. 
Ridley.  The  picture  of  Maud  was  to  have  been  at  the  Grosvenor 
Gallery,  but  was  not  finished.  However,  it  was  sent  in  for  the 
private  view,  and  taken  away  again  the  same  night  or  next  morning. 
We  used  thoroughly  to  enjoy  our  visits  to  the  studio- — that  is  to  say,  I 
did,  because  I  sat  and  looked  on.  I  can’t  say  whether  Maud  enjoyed 
them  as  much;  probably  not,  as  we  used  to  get  down  there  about 
eleven  o’clock,  have  lunch,  and  stay  all  the  afternoon,  most  of  which 
time  she  was  standing. 

“  I  cannot  remember  all  the  callers  we  used  to  see  there,  as  there 
were  so  many,  but  some  of  the  more  frequent  visitors  I  remember 
well.  There  was  one  man  who  was  always  there,  all  day  long,  and  we 
just  hated  him  ;  I  don’t  know  why,  as  he  seemed  very  harmless.  He 
was  Whistler’s  shadow.  I  don’t  know  who  he  was,  but  have  an  idea 
that  he  used  to  write  a  bit.  I  think  he  was  very  poor,  and  that  Whistler 
pretty  well  kept  him.  I  heard  some  few  years  ago  that  he  died  in  a 
lunatic  asylum.  Oscar  Wilde  was  a  frequent  visitor,  also  Walter  Sickert. 
Whistler  used  to  say,  ‘  Nice  boy,  Walter  !  ’  he  was  very  fond  of  him 
then.  Others  I  remember  were  two  brothers  named  Story,  Frank  Miles 
(who  had  a  studio  just  opposite  Whistler’s)— Renee  Rodd  as  Whistler 
used  to  call  him— Major  Templar,  Lady  Archie  Campbell,  and  Mrs. 
Hungerford.  Whistler  was  just  finishing  the  portrait  of  Lady  Meux, 
and  I  stood  for  him  one  day  for  about  five  minutes.  It  was  a  full- 
length  portrait  in  black  evening  dress,  with  a  big  white  cloak  over 
the  shoulders. 

“Whistler  was  a  most  entertaining  companion;  he  was  very 
fond  of  telling  us  Edgar  Allan  Poe’s  stories,  and  also  of  reciting  ‘The 
Lost  Lenore,  which  he  said  was  his  favourite  poem.  He  dined  with  us 
several  times  in  Lyall  Street ;  he  was  always  late  for  dinner,  sometimes 
half  an  hour,  and  I  think  on  more  than  one  occasion  was  sound  asleep 
at  the  table  before  the  end  of  the  dinner. 

“  Whistler’s  usual  breakfast,  which  he  often  had  after  we  arrived 
at  the  studio,  was  two  eggs  in  a  tumbler,  beaten  up  with  pepper,  salt, 
and  vinegar,  bread  and  coffee.  .  .  . 

“  Whistler  stood  yards  away  from  the  picture  with  his  brush,  and 
would  move  it  as  though  he  were  painting  ;  he  would  then  jump  across 
the  room,  and  put  a  dab  of  paint  on  the  canvas ;  he  also  used  to  wet 
ZlZ  [1882 


THE  PEACOCK  ROOM 


The  Joy  of  Life 

his  finger  and  gently  rub  portions  of  his  picture.  I  have  often  seen 
him  take  a  sponge  with  soap  and  water  and  wash  the  Blue  Girl’s  face 
(on  the  canvas,  I  mean).” 

Lady  Archibald  Campbell,  also  posing  for  Whistler,  says :  “  He 
was  a  great  friend  of  ours.  I  think  I  sat  to  him  during  a  year 
or  so,  off  and  on,  for  a  great  many  studies  in  different  costumes  and 
poses.  His  first  idea  was  to  paint  me  in  court  dress.  The  dress  was 
black  velvet,  the  train  was  silver  satin  with  the  Argyll  arms  embroidered 
in  applique  in  their  proper  colours.  He  made  a  sketch  of  me  in  the 
dress.  The  fatigue  of  standing  with  the  train  was  too  great,  and  he 
abandoned  the  idea.  In  all  these  studies  he  called  my  attention  to 
his  method  of  placing  his  subject  well  within  the  frame,  explaining 
that  a  portrait  must  be  more  than  a  portrait,  must  be  of  value  decora- 
tively.  He  never  patched  up  defects,  but,  if  dissatisfied  with  any 
portion  of  his  work,  covered  the  canvas  afresh  with  his  first  impression 
freshly  recorded.  The  first  impression  thrown  on  the  canvas  he  often 
put  away,  often  destroyed.  Among  others,  he  made  in  oils  an 
impression  of  me  as  Orlando,  in  the  forest  scene  of  As  You  Like  It,  at 
Coombe.  He  considered  this  successful.  A  picture  he  called  The 
Grey  Lady  was  a  harmony  in  silver  greys.  I  remember  thinking  it 
a  masterpiece  of  drawing,  giving  the  impression  of  movement.  I  was 
descending  a  stair,  the  canvas  was  of  a  great  height,  and  the  general 
effect  striking.  It  was  almost  completed  when  my  absence  from 
town  prevented  a  continuance  of  the  sittings.  When  I  returned 
he  asked  to  make  a  study  of  me  in  the  dress  in  which  I  called  upon 
him.  This  is  the  picture  which  he  exhibited  under  the  name  of  The 
Brodequin  Jaune,  or  The  Yellow  Buskin.  As  far  as  I  remember  it  was 
painted  in  a  few  sittings.  When  I  saw  him  shortly  before  his  death 
I  asked  after  The  Grey  Lady.  He  laughed  and  said  he  had  destroyed 
her.” 

Mr.  Walter  Sickert  has  recorded  a  number  of  interesting  details 
about  these  pictures,  though  his  statements  are  vague.  He  says  that 
the  canvases  had  a  grey  ground  “  made  with  black  and  white  mixed 
with  turpentine,”  and  that  Whistler  used  a  medium  of  oil  and  turpen¬ 
tine,  and  “  covered  thinly  the  whole  canvas  with  his  prepared  tones, 
using  house-painters’  brushes  for  the  surfaces,  and  drawing  lines  with 
round  hogshair  brushes  nearly  a  yard  long.  .  .  .  His  object  was  to 
1882]  213 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

cover  the  whole  canvas  at  one  painting— -either  the  first  or  the  hun¬ 
dredth.”  Lady  Archibald  asked  him  if  he  was  going  to  touch  up  her 
portrait  at  the  last  sitting.  Whistler  said,  “  Not  touch  it  up,  give  it 
another  beautiful  skin.”  Mr.  Sickert  also  very  aptly  suggests  the  reason 
why  some  of  the  portraits  were  never  completed.  Whistler  did  them 
all  over,  again  and  again,  till  they  were  “  finished — or  wrecked,  as 
often  happened,  from  the  sitter  getting  tired,  or  growing  up,  or  growing 
old.”  Almost  the  only  new  fact  in  Mr.  Frank  Rutter’s  Whistler  is 
given  him  by  Mr.  Sickert,  who  says  he  remembers  once  Whistler  standing 
on  a  chair  with  a  candle  at  the  end  of  a  sitting  from  Lady  Archibald 
Campbell,  looking  at  his  work,  but  undecided  whether  he  should  take 
it  out  or  leave  it.  They  started  to  dinner,  and  in  the  street  he  decided, 
saying,  “  You  go  back.  I  shall  only  be  nervous  and  begin  to  doubt 
again.  Go  back  and  take  it  all  out.”  This,  Mr.  Sickert  says  he  did, 
with  a  rag  and  benzoline. 

M.  Duret  suggests  that  the  ridicule  of  her  friends  had  an  effect 
on  Lady  Archibald  Campbell,  or  perhaps  her  beauty  made  her  critical ; 
anyhow,  she  suggested  changes  to  Whistler,  who,  though  he  seldom 
accepted  suggestions  from  his  sitters,  did  his  best  to  meet  her,  until 
it  seemed  as  if,  to  please  her,  he  must  repaint  the  picture,  and  he  was 
discouraged.  We  have  heard  of  a  scene  outside  the  studio  :  Lady 
Archibald  in  a  hansom  on  the  point  of  driving  away  never  to  return  ; 
M.  Duret  springing  on  the  step  and  representing  the  loss  to  the  world 
of  the  masterpiece,  and  arguing  so  well  that  she  came  back,  and  ‘The 
Yellow  Buskin  was  saved  from  the  fate  of  The  Grey  Lady  and  The  Lady 
in  Court  Dress.  Some  think  the  portrait  that  was  finished  is  Whistler’s 
greatest.  It  has  distinction  and  character.  It  is  another  Arrangement 
in  Black  in  which  critics  could  then  discover  but  dinginess  and  dirt.  One 
wit  described  it  as  a  portrait  of  a  lady  pursuing  the  last  train  through 
the  smoke  of  the  Underground.  People  have  learned  to  see,  or  at 
least  to  think  they  should  see,  beauty,  and  to-day  they  hardly  dare  deny 
it  is  a  masterpiece.  Whistler  called  it  first  the  Portrait  oj  Lady  Archibald 
Campbell,  but  afterwards  The  Yellow  Buskin ,  the  title  in  the  Wilstach 
Collection,  Philadelphia,  where  it  now  hangs,  skied  abominably. 

Mr.  Walter  Sickert  tells  an  amusing  story  of  Whistler’s  way  some¬ 
times  of  meeting  the  suggestions  of  sitters  : 

“  I  remember  an  occasion  when  Whistler,  yielding  to  persuasion, 
114  [1882 


The  Joy  of  Life 

allowed  himself  to  introduce,  step  by  step,  certain  modifications  in 
the  scheme  of  a  portrait  that  he  was  painting.  As  time  went  on  he 
saw  his  own  conception  overlaid  with  an  image  that  he  had  never 
intended.  At  last  he  stopped  and  put  his  brushes  slowly  down.  Taking 
off  his  spectacles,  he  said,  ‘  Very  well,  that  will  do.  This  is  your  portrait. 
We  will  put  it  aside  and  finish  it  another  day.’  ‘  Now,  if  you  please,’ 
he  added,  dragging  out  a  new  grey  canvas,  ‘  we  will  begin  mine.’  ” 

M.  Duret  posed  to  Whistler  at  the  same  time  as  Lady  Archibald 
Campbell.  When  she  could  not  come  Whistler  would  telegraph  him, 
and  day  by  day  he  watched  the  progress  of  her  portrait  while  his  was 
growing.  Business  brought  M.  Duret  to  London.  He  had  always 
been  much  with  artists  in  Paris,  had  been  intimate  with  Courbet, 
was  still  with  Fantin,  Manet,  and  Bracquemond.  He  recognised  the 
genius  of  men  at  whom  the  world  scoffed,  and  it  was  he  who  by  an 
article  in  the  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts  (April  1881)  made  the  French 
realise  their  mistake  of  years,  and  again  give  Whistler  the  place  so  long 

denied  him.  _ 

One  evening  in  1883,  after  a  private  view,  Whistler  and  Duret 
were  talking  over  the  pictures  they  had  seen,  and  in  discussing  the 
portrait  of  the  President  of  some  society,  Whistler  declared  that  red 
robes  of  office  were  not  in  character  with  modern  heads,  and  that  a 
man  should  be  painted  in  the  costume  of  his  time,  and  he  asked  Duret 
to  pose  to  him  that  he  might  show  what  could  be  done  with  evening 
dress,  the  despair  of  painters.  The  experiment  was  not  so  original 
as  Duret  seemed  to  think.  Leyland  was  painted  in  this  way  ten  years 
before,  when  Whistler  proved  the  truth  of  Baudelaire’s  assertion  that 
the  great  colourist  can  get  colour  from  a  black  coat,  a  white  shirt, 
against  a  dark  background.  Sir  Henry  Cole  also  posed  in  evening 
dress.  Whistler  did  not  rely  entirely  upon  so  simple  a  scheme  in  his 
portrait  of  Duret,  who  has  a  pink  domino  over  his  arm,  a  red  fan  in 
his  hand.  His  portrait  is  called  Arrangement  in  Flesh  Colour  and 
Black. 

M.  Duret  describes  Whistler  at  work.  He  marked  slightly  with 
chalk  the  place  for  the  figure  on  the  canvas,  and  began  at  once  to  put 
it  in,  in  colour  ;  at  the  end  of  the  first  sitting  the  scheme  was  there. 
This’  was  the  method  that  delighted  Whistler.  The  difficulty  with  him 
was  not  to  begin  a  portrait,  but  to  finish  it.  The  painting  was  brought 
1883]  2I5 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

almost  to  completion,  rubbed  out,  begun  again,  and  repainted  ten  times. 
Duret  saw  that  it  was  a  question  not  only  of  drawing,  but  of  colour,  of 
tone,  and  understood  Whistler’s  theory  that  to  bring  the  whole  into 
harmony  and  preserve  it  the  whole  must  be  repainted  as  a  whole,  if 
there  was  any  repainting  to  be  done.  There  are  finer  portraits,  but 
not  many  that  show  so  well  Whistler’s  meaning  when  he  said  that 
colour  is  “  the  arrangement  of  colour.”  The  rose  of  the  domino, 
the  fan,  and  the  flesh  is  so  managed  that  the  cold  grey  of  the  background 
seems  to  be  flushed  with  rose.  Duret,  when  he  shows  the  picture, 
takes  a  sheet  of  paper,  cuts  a  hole  in  it,  and  places  it  against 
the  background,  to  prove  that  the  grey,  when  surrounded  by  white, 
is  pure  and  cold  without  a  touch  of  rose,  and  that  Whistler  got  his 
effect  by  his  knowledge  of  the  relation  of  colour  and  his  mastery  of  tone. 

The  Lady  Meux— Black  and  White  went  to  the  Salon  of  1882,  cata¬ 
logued  as  Portrait  de  M.  Harry— Men,  to  the  confusion  of  commentators- 
The  Harmony  in  Flesh  Colour  and  Pink  was  shown  at  the  Grosvenor  with 
Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Silver,  Scherzo  in  Blue— The  Blue  Girl,  Nocturne 
in  Black  and  Gold — Southampton  Water,  Harmony  in  Black  and  Red, 
Note  in  Black  and  Opal— Jersey,  Blue  and  Brown — San  Brelade's  Bay. 
The  Limes  was  unable  to  decide  whether  Whistler  was  making  fun 
of  them  or  whether  something  was  wrong  with  his  eyes.  The  Pall 
Mall  regretted  that  “  if  the  Lady  Meux  was  full  of  fine  and  subtle 
qualities  of  drawing,  the  Scherzo  in  Blue  [Miss  Waller]  was  the  sketch 
of  a  scarecrow  in  a  blue  dress  without  form  and  void.  It  is  very  difficult 
to  believe  that  Mr.  Whistler  is  not  openly  laughing  at  us  when  he  holds 
up  before  us  such  a  piece  as  this.  His  counterpart  in  Paris,  the  eccentric 
M.  Manet,  has  at  least  more  sincerity  than  to  exhibit  his  work  in  such 
an  imperfect  condition.” 

But  Whistler  now  had  defenders.  An  “  Art  Student  ”  wrote  the 
next  day  to  the  Pall  Mall  to  point  out  that  “  at  the  private,  and  there¬ 
fore,  presumably,  the  Press,  view,  I  he  Blue  Girl  was  seen  in  an  unfinished 
state,  having  been  sent  there  merely  to  take  up  its  space  on  the  wall. 
It  was  removed  immediately,  and  has  been  since  finished.  Had  the 
critic  seen  it  since  he  would  hardly  have  called  it  without  form  and 
void.  The  want  of  artistic  sincerity  is  certainly  the  last  charge  that 
can  be  brought  against  a  man  who  has  followed  his  artistic  intention 
with  such  admirable  and  unswerving  singleness  of  purpose.” 

216 


[1882 


{See  page  155) 


STUDY 

L1THOTINT.  W.  2 
From  a  print  lent  by  T.  R.  Way,  Esq. 


The  Joy  of  Life 

From  this  time  onward  Whistler  no  longer  fought  his  battles 
alone. 

Eighteen  eighty-two  was  the  year  of  the  Paddon  Papers.  Mr.  Cole 
noted  in  his  diary  :  “  September  24.  To  Jimmy’s.  He  lent  me  proof 
of  his  Paddon  and  Howell  correspondence.  Amusing,  but  too 
personal  for  general  interest.”  We  agree  with  Mr.  Cole.  There  were 
complications  of  no  importance  with  Howell,  in  which  Paddon,  a 
diamond  merchant,  figured,  and  complications  over  a  Chinese  cabinet 
which  Mr.  Morse  bought  from  Whistler  when  he  moved  from  No..  2 
Lindsey  Row.  For  long  Mr.  Morse  had  only  the  lower  part,  while 
Howell  kept  the  top.  Whistler,  who  thought  nothing  concerning  him 
trivial,  published  these  letters  in  a  pamphlet,  called  The  Paddon  Papers . 
The  Owl  and  the  Cabinet ,  interesting  now  only  because  it  is  rare  and 
because  it  was  the  end  of  all  relations  between  himself  and  Howell. 

In  the  early  winter  of  1883  Whistler  gave  the  second  exhibition 
of  his  Venetian  etchings  at  the  Fine  Art  Society’s.  The  prints, 
fifty-one  in  number,  included  several  London  subjects.  He  deco¬ 
rated  the  gallery  in  white  and  yellow.  Ihe  wall  was  white  with 
yellow  hangings,  the  floor  was  covered  with  pale  yellow  matting 
and  the  couches  with  pale  yellow  serge.  The^  cane-bottomed  chairs 
were  painted  yellow.  There  were  yellow  flowers  in  yellow  pots,  a 
white  and  yellow  livery  for  the  attendant,  and  white  and  yellow 
Butterflies  for  his  friends.  At  the  private  view  Whistler  wore  yellow 
socks  just  showing  above  his  shoes,  and  the  assistants  wore  yellow 
neckties.  He  prepared  the  catalogue  ;  the  brown  paper  cover,  form, 
and  size  now  established.  He  printed  after  each  number  a  quotation 
from  the  critics  of  the  past,  and  on  the  title-page,  “Out  of  their  own 
mouths  shall  ye  judge  them.”  A  friend  who  looked  over  the  proofs 
for  him  writes  us  : 

“  We  came  to  ‘  there  is  merit  in  them,  and  I  do  not  wish  to  under¬ 
stand  it.’  [A  quotation  from  the  article  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 
which  Mr.  Wedmore  must  wish  could  be  forgotten.]  Jimmy  yelled 
with  joy,  and  thanked  the  printer  for  his  intelligent  misreading  of 
understate .  ‘  I  think  we  will  let  that  stand  as  it  is,  he  said.  I  was 

amused  at  the  private  view  to  see  him  discussing  the  question  with 
Wedmore,  who,  naturally,  did  not  think  it  quite  fair.” 

Before  the  show  opened  it  was,  he  told  us,  “  Well,  you  know,  a 

1888]  2I7 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

source  of  constant  anxiety  to  everybody  and  of  fun  to  me.  On  the 
ladder,  when  I  was  hanging  the  prints,  1  could  hear  whispers  :  no 
one  would  be  able  to  see  the  etchings  !  And  then  I  would  laugh,  ‘  Dear 
me,  of  course  not  !  that’s  all  right.  In  an  exhibition  of  etchings 
the  etchings  are  the  last  things  people  come  to  see  !  ’  And  then 
there  was  the  private  view,  and  I  had  my  box  of  wonderful  little 
Butterflies,  and  I  distributed  them  only  among  the  select  few,  so  that, 
naturally,  everybody  was  eager  to  be  decorated.  And  when  the 
crowd  was  greatest  Royalty  appeared,  quite  unprecedented  at  a  private 
view,  and  the  crowd  was  hustled  into  another  room  while  the  Prince 
and  Princess  of  Wales  went  round  the  gallery,  looking  at  everything, 
the  Prince  chuckling  over  the  catalogue.  ‘  I  say,  Mr.  Whistler,  what 
is  this  ?  ’  he  asked  when  he  came  to  the  Nocturne— Palaces.  ‘  I  am 
afraid  you  are  very  malicious,  Mr.  Whistler,’  the  Princess  said.” 

Those  who  received  the  little  Butterflies  thought  them  charming. 
Mrs.  Marzetti  writes  us  : 

“  I  have  a  few  treasures  which  I  guard  most  jealously;  one  is  the 
golden  Butterfly  that  he  made  us  wear  at  the  private  view  of  his  exhi¬ 
bition  in  Bond  Street,  in  the  original  little  card  box  in  which  he  sent 
them  (three  I  think)  to  mother,  with  a  message  written  on  the  lid, 
and  signed  with  his  Butterfly.” 

The  public  laughed.  The  Butterflies  added  to  the  screaming 
farce,  the  foppery  of  the  whole  thing.  The  attendant  in  yellow  and 
white  livery  was  called  the  poached  egg.  The  catalogue  was  worse. 
Poor  Wedmore  and  the  others  could  hardly  like  to  have  their  blunders 
and  blindness  immortalised.  Most  of  them  made  the  best  of  it  by 
refusing  to  see  in  him  anything  but  the  jester.  His  humour  was  com¬ 
pared  to  Mark  Twain’s,  and  he  to  Barnum,  and  the  show  was  “  excru¬ 
ciatingly  agreeable.”  Some  honestly  thought  his  work  rubbish,  and 
found  his  last  little  joke  dull  without  being  cheap.  Their  ridicule 
has  become  ridiculous.  As  for  Whistler’s  etchings,  the  price  of  the 
series  of  Twelve,  as  of  the  Twenty-Six  issued  a  year  or  so  later  in  which 
many  of  these  prints  were  published,  was  fifty  guineas ;  on  May  27, 
1908,  the  single  print  Nocturne — Palaces  sold  in  Paris  for  one  hundred 
and  sixty-eight  guineas,  and  we  have  been  offered  two  hundred  pounds 
for  our  Traghetto. 

For  the  exhibitions  of  1883  he  had  no  new  work,  but  sent  two  earlier 
218  [1883 


The  Joy  of  Lif£ 

Nocturnes  to  the  Grosvenor  and  to  the  Salon  the  Mother ,  and.  was 
awarded  a  third-class  medal,  the  only  recompense  he  ever  received 
at  the  Salon.  In  the  winter  of  1883-84  he  worked  a  great  deal  out 
of  doors,  spending  many  weeks  at  St.  Ives,  Cornwall.  He  took  no 
interest  in  landscape  ;  “  there  were  too  many  trees  in  the  country,” 
he  said.  But  he  loved  the  sea,  from  the  days  of  The  Blue  W ave  at 
Biarritz  and  The  Shores  oj  Brittany  until  one  of  the  last  summers  when 
he  painted  at  Domburg,  in  Holland.  The  Cornish  sketches  were  sent 
to  his  show  of  Notes,  Harmonies,  Nocturnes,  at  DowdeswelPs  Gallery 
in  May  1884,  the  first  exhibition  in  which  he  included  many  water¬ 
colours.  The  medium  had  been  difficult  to  him  ;  now  he  was  its 
master.  He  used  it  to  record  subjects  as  characteristic  of  London 
as  the  subjects  of  his  pastels  were  of  Venice.  There  were  also  studies 
and  sketches  in  Holland,  for  he  was  always  running  about  again.  The 
interest  of  the  catalogue  was  in  the  preface,  IJ  Envoie  he  called  it, 
and  was  so  laughed  at  not  only  for  the  place  he  gave  it,  but  for  the 
spelling,  that  he  searched  the  dictionaries,  and  then  declared,  we  cannot 
say  with  what  authority,  that  envoie  means  some  sort  of  snake.  ‘‘  Ha 
ha  !  that’s  it  !  Venom  !  ”  he  said.  The  Envoie,  without  his  explana¬ 
tion,  is  interesting,  for  it  consists  of  the  Propositions  No.  2,  which  have 
become  famous  :  that  a  picture  is  finished  when  all  traces  of  the  means 
that  produced  it  have  disappeared  ;  that  industry  in  art  is  a  necessity, 
not  a  virtue  ;  that  the  work  of  the  master  reeks  not  of  the  sweat  of  the 
brow  ;  that  the  masterpiece  should  appear  as  the  flower  to  the  painter, 
perfect  in  its  bud  as  in  its  bloom.  He  decorated  the  gallery  :  delicate 
rose  on  the  walls,  white  dado,  white  chairs,  and  pale  azaleas  in  rose- 
flushed  jars.  The  Butterfly,  tinted  in  rose,  was  on  the  card  of  invi¬ 
tation.  The  Arrangement  in  Flesh  Colour  and  Grey  was  as  little 
appreciated  as  the  Yellow  and  White  in  1883  ;  to  the  critics  it  was  a 
new  affectation. 

There  were  signs  of  appreciation  when,  in  1884,  Whistler  sent 
the  Carlyle  to  the  Loan  Exhibition  of  Scottish  National  Portraits 
at  Edinburgh,  where  it  created  an  impression.  There  had  been 
attempts  to  sell  the  picture.  M.  Duret  tried  to  interest  an  Irish 
collector,  who,  however,  did  not  dare  to  buy  it.  It  was  offered  to 
Mr.  Scharfe,  director  of  the  British  National  Portrait  Gallery,  who 
not  only  refused  to  consider  the  offer,  but  laughed  at  the  idea  that 
1884]  219 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

“  such  work  should  pass  for  painting.”  The  first  endeavour  to  secure 
it  for  a  national  collection  came  from  Mr.  George  R.  Halkett,  who 
urged  its  purchase  for  the  Scottish  National  Gallery  in  the  Scotsman 
(October  6,  1884).  He  was  supported  by  Mr.  William  Hole  in  a  letter 
published  the  following  day. 

Unfortunately,  the  subscription  paper  disclaimed  approval  of 
Whistler’s  art  and  theories  on  the  part  of  subscribers.  Whistler, 
indignant,  telegraphed  to  Edinburgh :  “  The  price  of  the  Carlyle  has 
advanced  to  one  thousand  guineas.  Dinna  ye  hear  the  bagpipes  ?  ” 
The  price  he  had  asked  was  four  hundred,  and  this  ended  the  nego¬ 
tiations. 

Why  about  this  time  Whistler  should  have  become  involved  in  a 
Church  Congress  in  the  Lake  Country,  unless  he  was  coming  from 
or  going  to  Scotland,  we  never  have  been  able  to  explain.  He  told 
us  about  it  years  later,  and  he  seemed  no  less  amazed  than  we.  J. 
was  just  about  to  start  for  the  Lakes,  and  Whistler  was  reminded  of 
his  excursion  there.  We  give  the  note  made  at  the  time  : 

“ Sunday ,  September  16  (1900).  Whistler  dined,  and  Agnes 
Repplier — not  a  successful  combination.  The  dinner  dragged  until 
E.  J.  Sullivan  happened  to  come  in,  and  Whistler  woke  up,  and,  all 
of  a  sudden,  we  hardly  know  how,  he  was  plunged  into  the  midst  of 
the  Lake  Country  and  a  Church  Congress,  travelling  third  class  with 
the  clergy  and  their  families,  eating  jam  and  strange  meals  with 
quantities  of  tea,  and  visiting  the  Rev.  Mr.  Green  in  his  prison,  shut 
up  by  his  bishop  for  burning  candles,  and  altogether  the  hero  and 
important  person  he  would  never  be  on  coming  out.  An  amazing 
story,  but  what  Whistler  was  doing  in  the  Lakes  with  the  clergy  he 
did  not  appear  to  know  ;  the  story  was  enough.” 

The  only  result  of  the  expedition  was  the  etching  done  in  Cumber¬ 
land,  and  his  impression  of  the  unpicturesqueness  of  the  Lakes :  the 
mountains  “  were  all  little  round  hills  with  little  round  trees  out  of 
a  Noah’s  Ark.”  What  he  thought  of  great  mountain  forms  we  do  not 
know  for,  save  on  the  trip  to  Valparaiso  and  going  to  Italy,  he  never 
saw  them.  Yet  the  lines  of  the  coast  in  the  Crepuscule  show  that  he 
could  render  mountains.  But,  as  he  said,  the  mountains  of  Cumberland 
are  only  little  round  hills.  At  the  end  of  his  life  he  saw  the  mountains 
of  Corsica,  Gibraltar,  and  Tangier,  but  there  is  no  record. 


220 


[1884 


In  the  possession  of  Piekford  R.  Waller,  Esq. 


DRAWING  IN  WASH  FOR  A  CATALOGUE  OF  BLUE  AND  WHITE 
NANKIN  PORCELAIN 


(See  page  156) 


Among  Friends 


CHAPTER  XXV :  AMONG  FRIENDS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
EIGHTY-ONE  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-SEVEN. 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1884  that  J.  met  Whistler.  Up  to  this  time 
we  have  had  to  rely  upon  what  Whistler  and  those  who  knew  him 
have  told  us.  Henceforward  we  write  from,  our  own  knowledge. 

This  is  J.’s  story  of  the  meeting  :  “  I  first  saw  Whistler  July  13, 
1884.  I  had  been  asked  by  Mr.  Gilder,  editor  of  the  Century  Magazine , 
to  make  the  illustrations  for  a  series  of  articles  on  Old  Chelsea  by  Dr. 
B.  E.  Martin,  and  Mr.  Drake,  the  art  editor,  suggested  that  if  I  could 
get  Whistler  to  etch,  draw,  or  paint  something  in  Chelsea  for  the 
Century ,  the  Century  would  be  very  glad  to  have  it.  His  water-colours 
and  pastels  were  being  shown  at  Dowdeswell’s— -Notes,  Harmonies , 
Nocturnes — and  there  his  address  was  given  me  :  No.  13  Tite  Street. 

“  The  house  did  not  strike  me,  I  only  remember  the  man  and  his 
work.  I  knocked,  the  door  was  slightly  opened,  and  I  handed  in 
my  letter  from  Mr.  Gilder.  I  was  left  in  the  street.  Then  the  door 
was  opened  wide,  and  Whistler  asked  me  in.  He  was  all  in  white, 
his  waistcoat  had  long  sleeves,  and  every  minute  it  seemed  as  if  he 
must  begin  to  juggle  with  glasses.  For  to  be  honest,  my  first  impression 
was  of  a  bar-keeper  strayed  from  a  Philadelphia  saloon  into  a  Chelsea 
studio.  Never  had  I  seen  such  thick,  black,  curling  hair.  But  in 
the  midst  was  the  white  lock,  and  keen,  brilliant  eyes  flashed  at  me 
from  under  the  thick,  bushy  eyebrows. 

“  At  the  end  of  the  hall  into  which  he  took  me  was  a  shadowy 
passage,  then  some  steps,  a  light  room  beyond,  and  on  an  easel  the 
portrait  of  a  little  man  with  a  violin,  the  Saras  ate,  that  had  never 
been  seen  outside  the  studio.  Whistler  stopped  me  in  the  passage 
and  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  the  picture.  I  cannot  recall  his  words. 
I  was  too  overwhelmed  by  the  dignity  of  the  portrait  to  remember 
what  he  said. 

“  Later  on  he  brought  out  The  Falling  Rocket.  4  Well  now,  what 
do  you  think  of  that  ?  What  is  it  ?  * 

“  I  said  fireworks,  and  I  supposed  one  of  the  Cremorne  pictures." g* 
“  ‘  Oh,  you  do,  do  you  l  Isn’t  it  amazing  ?  Bring  tots,  idiots, 
imbeciles,  blind  men,  children,  anything  but  the  Islander,  and  they 
know  ;  even  you,  who  stole  the  name  of  my  Little  Venice 
1884]  221 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

“  This  referred  to  an  etching  of  mine  which  had  been  published 
under  the  title  of  Little  V enice.  Why  Whistler  did  not  resent  this 
always  or  let  it  interfere  with  our  friendship  later,  I  do  not  know, 
for  Mr.  Keppel  has  told  me  he  felt  bitterly  about  it  at  the  time. 

“  Whistler  also  showed  me  some  of  his  pastels.  And  he  talked, 
and  I  forget  completely  what  he  said  until,  finally,  I  suggested  why 
I  had  come,  for  I  did  not  think  there  was  any  greater  honour  than 
to  see  one’s  work  in  the  pages  of  the  Century.  There  was  some  excuse 
delightfully  made.  Then  he  called  to  someone  who  appeared  from  a 
corner.  And  Whistler  said  to  him,  ‘  Here’s  a  chance  for  you.  But 
you  will  do  these  things.’  And  that  was  my  introduction  to  Mr. 
Mortimer  Menpes. 

“  This  was  not  what  I  had  bargained  for,  and  I  said  promptly, 

‘  Mr.  Whistler,  I  came  here  to  ask  you  to  let  us  have  some  drawings 
of  Chelsea.  If  you  cannot,  why,  I’ll  do  them  myself.’ 

“  ‘  Stay  and  lunch,’  Whistler  said,  and  there  was  lunch,  a  wonderful 
curry,  in  a  bright  dining-room— a  yellow  and  blue  room.  Later  on 
he  took  me  down  to  the  Embankment,  and,  though  it  seems  so  little 
like  him,  showed  me  the  Carlyle  statue  and  Turner’s  house.  He  pointed 
out  his  own  houses  in  Lindsey  Row,  and  told  me  of  a  photographer 
who  had  reproduced  all  his  pictures  and  photographed  old  Chelsea. 
I  remember,  too,  asking  Whistler  about  the  Thames  plates,  and  his 
telling  me  they  were  all  done  on  the  spot.  And  then  he  drove  me  in 
a  cab  to  Piccadilly,  and  asked  me  to  come  and  see  him  again. 

“  The  next  Sunday  I  went  with  Mr.  Stephen  Parrish  to  Haden’s, 
in  Hertford  Street.  We  were  taken  to  the  top  storey,  where  Haden 
was  working  on  the  mezzotint  of  the  Breaking  up  of  the  Agamemnon. 
I  asked  him— I  must  have  almost  paralysed  him— what  he  thought 
of  Whistler,  and  he  told  me  that  if  ever  he  had  to  sell  either  his  collection 
of  Whistlers  or  of  Rembrandts,  the  Rembrandts  should  go  first.  They 
both  went. — Downstairs,  in  a  sort  of  conservatory  at  the  back  of  the 
dining-room,  was  a  printing  press.  Lady  Haden  joined  us  at  lunch. 
So  also  did  Mr.  Hopkinson  Smith,  resurrecting  vast  numbers  of  American 
‘  chestnuts.’  I  can  recall  that  both  Parrish  and  I  found  him  in  the 
way,  and  I  can  also  recall  his  getting  us  into  such  a  state  that,  as  we 
came  down  a  street  leading  into  Piccadilly,  Parrish  vented  his  irri¬ 
tation  on  one  of  the  public  goats  which  in  those  days  acted  both  as 


Among  Friends 

scavengers  and,  police  for  London.  As  the  goat  put  down  his  head 
to  defend  himself,  Parrish  put  up  his  umbrella,  and  the  goat  fled  into 
the  open  door  of  a  club.  What  happened  after  that  we  did  not  wait 

to  see. 

“I  saw  Whistler  only  once  again  that  summer.  He  was  in  Charing 
Cross  Station,  in  front  of  the  bookstall.  He  wore  a  black  frock-coat, 
white  trousers,  patent  leather  shoes,  top  hat,  and  he  was  carrying, 
the  only  time  I  ever  saw  it,  the  long  cane.  I  did  not  want  to  speak 
to  him,  and  I  liked  his  looks  less  than  when  I  first  met  him. 

“  Early  in  the  autumn  of  1884  we  went  to  Italy,  and  it  was  several 
years  after  our  return  before  I  got  really  to  know  him,  and  to  under¬ 
stand  that  his  appearance  was  to  him  merely  a  part  of  the  ‘  joke  of 
life.’  ” 

CHAPTER  XXVI :  AMONG  FRIENDS.  THE  YEARS  EIGH¬ 
TEEN  EIGHTY-ONE  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-SEVEN  CON¬ 
TINUED. 

Whistler  said  he  could  not  afford  to  keep  a  friend,  but  he  was  never 
without  many.  A  photograph  taken  in  his  studio  in  1881  shows  him 
the  centre  of  a  group,  of  whom  the  others  are  Julian  and  Waldo  Story, 
sons  of  W.  W.  Story  ;  Frank  Miles,  a  painter  from  whom  great  things 
were  expected;  and  the  Hon.  Frederick  Lawless,  a  sculptor.  In  the 
background  is  a  little  statuette  everybody  wanted  to  know  the  merit  of, 
explained  one  day  by  Whistler,  “  Well,  you  know— why,  you  can  take  it 
up  and— well,  you  can  set  it  down  !  ”  Mr.  Lawless  writes  us  that 
Whistler  modelled  the  little  figure,  though  we  never  heard  that  he 
modelled  anything,  and  Professor  Lanteri  says  he  never  worked  in  the 
round.  Mr.  Pennington  suggests  that  the  statuette  was  by  Mr.  Waldo 
Story,  but  Mr.  Lawless  says  : 

“  When  Whistler  lived  in  his  London  studio  he  often  modelled 
graceful  statuettes,  and  one  day  he  put  up  one  on  a  vase,  asking  me  to 
photograph  it.  I  said  he  must  stand  beside  it.  He  said,  ‘  But  we  must 
make  a  group  and  all  be  photographed,’  and  that  I  was  to  call  out  to 
his  servant  when  to  take  the  lid  off  the  camera,  and  when  to  put  it 
back.  I  then  developed  the  negative  in  his  studio.” 

Mr.  Francis  James,  often  at  13  Tite  Street,  has  many  memories, 

1881]  223 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

specially  of  one  summer  evening  when  Coquelin  aini  and  a  large  party 
came  to  supper  and  Whistler  kept  them  until  dawn  and  then  took  them 
to  see  the  sun  rise  over  the  Thames,  a  play  few  had  ever  performed  in. 

For  two  or  three  years  no  one  was  more  with  Whistler  than  Sir 
Rennell  Rodd.  He  writes  us  : 

“  It  was  in  ’82,  ’83  that  I  saw  most  of  him.  Frank  Miles,  Waldo 
and  Julian  Story,  Walter  Sickert,  Harper  Pennington,  and,  at  one  time, 
Oscar  Wilde,  were  constantly  there.  Jimmy,  unlike  many  artists, 
liked  a  camarade  about  the  place  while  he  was  working,  and  talked  and 
laughed  and  raced  about  all  the  time,  putting  in  the  touches  delicately, 
after  matured  thought,  with  long  brushes.  There  was  a  poor  fellow 
who  had  been  a  designer  for  Minton— but  his  head  had  given  way 
and  he  was  already  quite  mad— used  to  be  there  day  after  day  for  months 
and  draw  innumerable  sketches  on  scraps  of  brown  paper,  cartridge 
boards,  anything — often  full  of  talent,  but  always  mad.  Well,  Jimmy 
humoured  him  and  made  his  last  weeks  of  liberty  happy.  Eventually 
he  had  to  be  removed  to  an  asylum,  and  died  raving  mad.  I  used  to 
help  Whistler  often  in  printing  his  etchings.  It  was  very  laborious  work. 
He  would  manipulate  a  plate  for  hours  with  the  ball  of  the  thumb  and 
the  flat  of  the  palm  to  get  just  the  right  superficial  ink  left  on  it,  while 
I  damped  the  paper,  which  came  out  of  old  folio  volumes,  the  first 
and  last  sheets,  with  a  fairly  stiff  brush.  And  often,  for  a  whole  morn¬ 
ing’s  work,  only  one  or  two  prints  were  achieved  which  satisfied  his 
critical  eye,  and  the  rest  would  be  destroyed.  There  was  a  Venetian 
one  which  gave  him  infinite  trouble  in  the  printing. 

“  He  was  the  kindest  of  men,  though  he  was  handy  with  his  cane. 
In  any  financial  transaction  he  was  scrupulously  honourable,  though 
he  never  had  much  money  at  his  disposal. 

“  We  had  great  fun  over  the  many  correspondences  and  the  cata¬ 
logues  elaborated  in  those  days  in  Tite  Street.  .  .  .  He  was  demoniacal 
in  controversy,  and  the  spirit  of  elfin  mischief  was  developed  in  him 
to  the  point  of  genius.  .  .  .  Pellegrini  was  much  at  Whistler’s  in 
those  days,  and  in  a  way  the  influence  of  Whistler  was  fatal  to  him.  His 
admiration  was  unbounded  and  he  abandoned  his  art,  in  which,  as 
Jimmy  used  to  say,  ‘  he  had  taught  all  the  others  what  none  of  them  had 
been  able  to  learn,’  and  took  to  trying  to  paint  portraits  in  Whistler’s 
manner  without  any  success. 

224 


[1883 


TALI,  BRIDGE 

LITHOGRAPH.  W.  9 

From  a  print  lent  by  T.  R.  Way,  Esq. 


( See  page  156) 


Among  Friends 

“One  of  the  few  modern  painters  I  have  ever  heard  him  praise 
was  Albert  Moore,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  was  not  to  some  extent 
due  to  a  personal  liking  for  the  man.  It  always  struck  me  his  literary 
judgments,  if  he  ever  happened  to  express  any,  were  extraordinarily 
sound  and  brilliant  in  summing  up  the  merits  or  demerits  of  a  writer. 

“  He  had  an  extraordinary  power  of  putting  a  man  in  his  place. 

I  remember  a  breakfast  which  Waldo  Story  gave  at  Dieudonne’s.  Every¬ 
one  there  had  painted  a  picture,  or  written  a  book,  or  in  some  way  out 
raged  the  Philistine,  with  the  exception  of  one  young  gentleman,  whose 
raison  d'etre  there  was  not  so  apparent  as  were  the  height  of  his  co  ars 
and  the  glory  of  his  attire.  He  nevertheless  ventured  to  lay  down  the 
law  on  certain  matters  which  seemed  beyond  his  province,  and  even 
went  so  far  as  to  combat  some  dictum  of  the  master’s,  who,  readjusting 
his  eye-glass,  looked  pleasantly  at  him,  and  said,  ‘  And  whose  son  are 

For  two  or  three  years  Oscar  Wilde  was  so  much  with  Whistler  that 
everyone  who  went  to  the  studio  found  him  there,  just  as  everyone 
who  went  into  society  saw  them  together.  Wilde  had  come  up  from 
Oxford  not  long  before  the  Ruskin  trial,  with  a  reputation  as  a  brilliant 
undergraduate,  winner  of  the  Newdigate  prize,  and  he  now  posed  as 
the  apostle  of  “  Beauty.”  Many  a  reputation  is  lost  between  Oxford 
and  London,  but  his  was  strengthened.  Oscar’s  witty  sayings  were 
repeated  and  his  youth  seemed  to  excuse  his  pose.  Whistler  impressed 
him.  At  Oxford  Wilde  had  followed  Ruskin,  and  broken  stones 
on  the  road  which  was  to  lead  the  young  to  art  ;  he  had  read  with 
Pater,  he  had  accepted  the  teaching  of  Morris  and  Burne-Jones,  and 
their  master,  Rossetti.  But  Ruskin  was  impossible  to  follow,  Pater 
was  a  recluse,  Rossetti’s  health  was  broken,  the  prehistoric  Fabians, 
Morris  and  Burne-Jones,  were  the  foci  of  a  little  group  of  their  own. 
When  Wilde  came  to  London  Whistler  was  the  focus  of  the  world. 
Whistler  was  sought  out,  Wilde  tried  to  play  up.  In  Tite  Street  blue 
and  white  was  used,  not  as  a  symbol  of  faith,  but  every  day  ;  flowers 
bloomed,  not  as  a  pledge  of  “culture,”  but  for  their  colour  and  form  ; 
beauty  was  accepted  as  no  discovery,  but  as  the  aim  of  art  since  the 
first  artist  drew  a  line  and  saw  that  it  was  beautiful.  Whistler  knew  all 
this.  Wilde  fumbled  with  it. 

Whistler  was  flattered  by  Wilde.  He  was  looked  upon  as  the  world  s 
1883]  p  225 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

jester  when  Wilde  fawned  upon  him.  Other  young  men  gathered 
about  Whistler  had  name  and  reputation  to  make.  But  Wilde’s  name 
was  in  every  man  s  mouth;  he  glittered  with  the  glory  of  the  work  he 
was  to  do.  He  was  the  most  promising  poet  of  his  generation  and  he 
was  amusing.  There  was  charm  in  his  personality.  We  remember 
when  we  met  him  on  his  lecture  tour  in  America,  and  hardly  knew 
whether  his  magnificence  on  the  platform  where,  in  velvet  knicker¬ 
bockers,  he  faced  with  calmness  rows  of  college  boys  each  bearing  a  lily, 
and  stood  with  composure  their  collective  emotion  as  he  sipped  a  glass 
of  water,  was  more  wonderful  than  his  gaiety  when  we  talked  with  him 
afterwards.  It  has  been  said  that  he  gave  the  best  of  himself  in  his 
talk.  If  Whistler  liked  always  to  have  a  companion,  his  pleasure  was 
increased  when  he  found  someone  as  brilliant.  Wilde  spent  hours  in 
the  studio,  he  came  to  Whistler’s  Sunday  breakfasts,  he  assisted  at 
Whistler  s  private  views.  Whistler  went  with  him  everywhere.  There 
were  few  functions  at  which  they  were  not  present.  At  receptions 
the  company  divided  into  two  groups,  one  round  Whistler,  the  other 
round  Wilde.  It  was  the  fashion  to  compare  them.  To  the  world 
that  ran  after  them,  that  thought  itself  honoured,  or  notorious,  by 
their  presence,  they  seemed  inseparable. 

The  trouble  began  when  Whistler  discovered  how  small  was  Wilde’s 
knowledge  of  art  ;  he  could  never  endure  anybody  in  the  studio  who  did 
not  understand.  Whistler  wrote  of  Wilde  as  a  man  “  with  no  more 
sense  of  a  picture  than  of  the  fit  of  a  coat.”  The  Gentle  Art  shows  that 
Whistler  was  furious  with  Wilde’s  borrowing  from  him.  That  Wilde 
took  his  good  where  he  found  it  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  what  has 
always  been  done  what  Whistler  did.  But  the  genius,  from  the  good 
thus  taken,  evolves  something  of  his  own.  Wilde  was  content  to  shine 
personally  and  let  the  great  things  expected  of  him  wait.  When  it 
was  a  question  of  wit,  there  was  no  one  to  whom  Wilde  could  go 
except  Whistler.  It  is  all  expressed  in  the  old  story  :  “I  wish  I  had 
said  that,  Whistler.”  “  You  will,  Oscar,  you  will.”  In  matters  of 
art  Wilde  had  everything  to  learn  from  Whistler,  who,  though  ever 
generous,  resented  Wilde’s  preaching  in  the  provinces  the  truths  which 
he  had  taught  for  years.  This  is  all  in  The  Gentle  Art.  “  Oscar  ” 
had  “  the  courage  of  the  opinions  ...  of  others  !  ”  and  again  :  “  Oscar 
went  forth  as  my  St.  John,  but,  forgetting  that  humility  should  be  his 
Z26  [1883 


Among  Friends 

chief  characteristic  and  unable  to  withstand  the  unaccustomed  respect 
with  which  his  utterances  were  received,  he  not  only  trifled  with  my 

shoe,  but  bolted  with  the  latchet  ! 

Mr.  Cole,  in  1884,  noted  in  his  diary  that  Whistler  was  strong 

on  Oscar  Wilde’s  notions  of  art  which  he  derived  from  him  (Jimmy). 
Mr.  Herbert  Vivian  tells  the  story  of  a  dinner  given  by  Whistler  after 
Wilde  had  been  lecturing  : 

“  ‘  Now,  Oscar,  tell  us  what  you  said  to  them,  W  histler  kept  insisting, 

and  Wilde  had  to  repeat  all  the  phrases,  while  Whistler  rose  and  made 
solemn  bows,  with  his  hand  across  his  breast,  in  mock  acceptance  o  is 
guests’  applause.  ...  The  cruel  part  of  the  plagiarism  lay  m  the  tact 
that,  when  Whistler  published  his  Ten  O’Clock,  many  people  thought 

it  had  all  been  taken  from  Wilde  s  lecture. 

Whistler  grew  more  and  more  exasperated  by  the  use  Wilde  made 
of  him.  Their  intimacy  was  closest  in  the  early  eighties  when  Whistler 
was  bewildering  the  world  deliberately  ;  Wilde  copied  him  clumsily. 
The  world,  that  did  not  know  them,  mistook  one  for  the  other  and 
thought  WThistler  as  much  an  aesthete  as  Wilde.  When  Patience  was 
produced,  and  when  it  was  revived  a  few  years  ago,  Bunthorne,  w  o 
was  Wilde,  appeared  with  Whistler’s  black  curls  and  white  lock,  mous¬ 
tache,  tuft,  eye-glass,  and  laughed  with  Whistler’s  “  Ha  ha  !  ”  Whistler, 
seeing  Wilde  in  a  Polish  cap  and  “  green  overcoat  befrogged  and  wonder¬ 
fully  befurred,”  desired  him  to  “restore  those  things  to  Nathan’s, 
and  never  again  let  me  find  you  masquerading  the  streets  of  my  Chelsea 
in  the  combined  costumes  of  Kossuth  and  Mr.  Mantalini  !  ”  i  o  be 
in  danger  of  losing  his  pose  before  the  world  was  bad  enough,  but  to 
be  mistaken  for  another  man  who  rendered  him  ridiculous  was  worse. 
No  one  has  summed  up  the  position  better  than  the  Times  m  a  notice 
of  Wilde’s  Collected  Works  : 

“  With  a  mind  not  a  jot  less  keen  than  Whistler’s,  he  had  none 
of  the  conviction,  the  high  faith,  for  which  Whistler  found  it  worth 
while  to  defy  the  crowd.  Wilde  had  poses  to  attract  the  crowd. 
And  the  difference  was  this,  that  while  Whistler  was  a  prophet  who- 
liked  to  play  Pierrot,  Wilde  grew  into  a  Pierrot  who  liked  to  play  the 

prophet.”  . 

If  Whistler  ever  played  Pierrot,  it  was  with  a  purpose.  Where  art- 

was  concerned  he  was  serious.  Wilde  was  serious  about  nothing.  His 

1883]  227 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

two  topics  were  “  self  and  art,”  and  his  interest  in  both  was  part  of 
his  bid  for  notoriety.  He  might  jest  about  himself,  but  flippancy,  if 
art  was  his  subject,  was  to  Whistler  a  crime.  The  only  way  he  showed 
his  resentment  was  by  refusing  to  take  Wilde  seriously  about  anything. 
Even  when  Wilde  was  married,  he  was  not  allowed  to  forget,  for  Whistler 
telegraphed  to  the  church,  “  Fear  I  may  not  be  able  to  reach  you  in 
time  for  the  ceremony.  Don’t  wait.”  Later,  in  Paris,  he  called 
Wilde  '  Oscar,  bourgeois  malgri  lui a  witticism  none  could  appreciate 
better  than  the  Parisians.  As  soon  as  he  began  to  make  a  jest  of  Wilde 
he  ended  the  companionship  to  which,  while  it  lasted,  London  society 
owed  much  gaiety. 

The  relation  between  Whistler  and  artists  now  coming  to  the 
studio  was  less  that  of  friends  than  of  Master  and  Followers,  as  they 
called  themselves.  Fie  was  forty-six  when  he  returned  from  Venice, 
and  there  were  men  of  the  new  generation  who  shared  none  of  the 
doubts  of  his  contemporaries,  but  believed  in  him.  The  devotion  of 
this  group  became  infatuation.  They  were  ready  to  do  anything  for 
him.  Families  became  estranged  and  engagements  were  broken  off 
because  of  him.  They  fought  his  battles ;  ran  his  errands,  spied 
out  the  land  for  him  ;  published  his  letters,  and  read  them  to 
everybody.  They  formed  a  court  about  him.  They  exaggerated  every- 
thing,  even  their  devotion,  and  became  caricatures  of  him,  as  excessive 
in  imitation  as  in  devotion.  He  denied  the  right  of  any,  save  the 
artist,  to  speak  authoritatively  of  art  ;  they  started  a  club  to  train  the 
classes— Princes,  Prime  Ministers,  Patrons,  Ambassadors,  Members 
of  Parliament — to  blind  faith  in  Master  and  Followers.  Whistler 
mixed  masses  of  colours  on  the  palette,  keeping  them  under  water  in 
saucers.  The  Followers  mixed  theirs  in  vegetable  dishes  and  kept 
them  in  milk-cans,  labelled  Floor,  Face,  Hair,  Lips.  He  had  a  table 
palette  ;  they  adopted  it,  but  added  hooks  to  hang  their  cans  of 
paint  on.  He  used  his  paint  very  liquid — the  “sauce”  of  the 
Nocturnes  ;  they  used  such  quantities  of  medium  that  as  much  went 
on  the  floor  as  on  the  canvas,  and,  before  a  picture  was  blocked  in, 
they  were  wading  in  liquid  masterpieces.  Many  of  his  brushes  were 
large;  they  worked  with  whitewash  brushes.  They  copied  his  personal 
peculiarities.  One  evening  at  a  dinner  when  he  wore  a  white  waist¬ 
coat  and  all  the  buttons,  because  of  the  laundress,  came  out,  a 
228  [1883 


NOCTURNE 
LITHO'l  INT.  W.  5 

From  a  print  lent  by  T.  R.  Way,  Esq. 


Among  Friends 

Follower,  seeing  it  buttonless,  hurried  from  the  room,  and  returned 
with  his  bulging,  sure  that  he  was  in  the  movement. 

Whistler  accepted  their  devotion,  and,  finding  them  willing  to 
squander  their  time,  monopolised  it.  There  was  plenty  for  everybody 
to  do  in  the  studio.  If  they  complained  that  he  took  advantage  of 
them,  he  proved  to  them  that  the  fault  was  theirs.  Mr.  Menpes 
writes : 

“  We  seldom  asked  Whistler  questions  about  his  work.  ...  If 
we  had,  he  would  have  been  sure  to  say,  ‘  Pshaw  !  You  must  be  occupied 
with  the  Master,  not  with  yourselves.  There  is  plenty  to  be  done.’ 
If  there  was  not,  Whistler  would  always  make  a  task  for  you— a  picture 
to  be  taken  into  Dowdeswells’,  or  a  copper  plate  to  have  a  ground  put 
on. 

No  one  respected  the  work  of  others  more  than  Whistler.  But 
if  others  did  not  respect  it  themselves  and  made  him  a  present  of  their 
time  he  did  not  refuse.  If  he  allowed  the  Followers  to  accompany 
him  in  his  little  journeys,  it  was  because  they  were  so  eager.  When 
he  went  with  Walter  Sickert  and  Mortimer  Menpes  to  St.  Ives,  in  the 
winter  of  1883-84,  they  were  up  at  six  o’clock  because  it  pleased  him  ; 
they  dared  not  eat  till  he  rang  the  bell.  They  prepared  his  panels,  mixed 
his  colours,  cleaned  his  brushes,  taking  a  day  off  for  fishing  if  Whistler 
chose,  abjuring  sentiment  if  he  objected.  Whistler  saw  the  humour  in 
their  attitude  and  was  the  more  exacting.  The  Followers  were  not 
allowed  their  own  opinions.  Once,  when  Walter  Sickert  ventured  to 
praise  Leighton’s  Harvest  Moon  at  the  Manchester  Art  Treasures 
Exhibition,  Whistler,  hearing  of  it,  telegraphed  :  “  The  Harvest  Moon 
rises  over  Hampstead  [where  Sickert  lived],  and  the  cocks  of  Chelsea 
crow.”  The  Followers,  however,  knew  that  if  they  were  of  use  to 
Whistler,  he  was  of  infinitely  more  use  to  them,  and  that  submission 
to  his  rule  and  exposure  to  his  wit  were  a  small  price  to  pay.  Mr. 
Sickert  tells  another  story.  He  and  Whistler  were  once  printing  etchings 
together,  when  the  former  dropped  a  copper  plate.  “  How  like  you  i  ” 
said  Whistler.  Five  minutes  afterwards  the  improbable  happened. 
Whistler,  who  was  never  clumsy,  dropped  one  himself.  There  was  a 
pause.  *'  How  unlike  me  !  ”  was  his  remark. 

Mr.  Menpes,  who,  in  Whistler  as  I  Knew  Him,  makes  more  of  the 
follies  than  the  privileges  of  the  Followers,  cannot  ignore  their  debt. 
1884]  229 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

They  worked  for  him  not  only  in  the  studio,  but  in  the  street,  hunting 
with  him  for  little  shops,  corners  and  models,  painting  at  his  side, 
walking  home  with  him  after  dinner  or  supper  at  the  club,  learning 
from  him  to  observe  and  memorise  the  night.  To  them  he  was  full 
of  kindliness^when  to  the  world  he  often  seemed  insolent  and  audacious, 
and  after  his  death — even  before — some  denied  him.  Later  Whistler 
said  that  the  Followers  were  there  in  the  studio  ;  yes,  but  they  never 
painted  there  ;  they  vcere  kept  well  in  the  background. 

American  artists,  in  London  or  passing  through,  began  to  make  their 
way  to  the  studio.  Otto  Bacher  records  in  1883  Whistler’s  friendliness, 
the  pictures  in  the  studio,  their  dinners  together.  In  1885  Mr.  John 
W.  Alexander  came,  commissioned  by  the  Century  to  make  a  drawing 
of  him  for  a  series  of  portraits.  Whistler  posed  for  a  little  while,  though 
unwillingly,  and  criticised  the  drawing  so  severely  that  Mr.  Alexander 
tore  it  up.  After  that,  he  says,  Whistler  posed  like  a  lamb.  Mr. 
Harper  Pennington  has  written  for  us  his  reminiscences  of  those  years  : 

“  •  .  .  Whistler  was  more  than  kind  to  me.  Through  him  came 
everything.  He  introduced  me  right  and  left,  and  called  me  ‘  pupil  ’ ; 
took  me  about  to  picture  shows  and  pointed  out  the  good  and  bad.  I 
remember  my  astonishment  the  first  occasion  of  his  giving  unstinted 
praise  to  modern  work,  on  which  he  seldom  lavished  positives.  It  was 
at  the  Royal  Academy  before  one  of  those  interiors  of  Orchardson’s. 
Well,  he  stood  in  front  of  the  canvas,  his  hat  almost  on  his  nose,  his 
tuft  ’  sticking  straight  out  as  it  did  when  he  would  catch  his  nether 
lip  between  his  teeth,  and,  presently,  a  long  forefinger  -went  out  and 
circled  round  a  bit  of  yellow  drapery,  ‘  It  would  have  been  nice  to 
have  painted  that,’  he  said,  as  if  he  thought  aloud. 

“  Another  day  we  rushed  to  the  National  Gallery— ‘  just  to  get  the 
taste  out  of  our  mouths,’  he  said — after  a  couple  of  hours’  wandering 
in  the  Royal  Academy  wilderness  of  Hardy  Annual  Horrors.  Whistler 
went  at  once  to  almost  smell  the  Canalettos,  while  I  went  across  the 
Gallery,  attracted  by  the  Marriage  d  la  Mode.  It  was  my  first  sight  of 
them.  Up  to  that  day  I  had  supposed  that  what  I  was  told  and  had 
read  of  Hogarth  was  the  truth — the  silly  rubbish  about  his  being  only 
a  caricaturist,  so  that  when  confronted  with  those  marvels  of  technical 
quality,  I  fairly  gasped  for  breath,  and  then  hurried  over  to  where 
Whistler  had  his  nose  against  the  largest  Canaletto,  seized  his  arm, 
230  [1885 


The  Studio  in  the  Fulham  Road 
and  said  hurriedly,  '  Come  over  here.’  ‘  What’s  the  matter  i  ’  said  he 

and  said  nur  y.  He  was  a  great  painter  !  Sh 

turning  round.  Why  .  tlogar  someone  would  overhear 

_sh  !  ’  said  he  (pretending  he  was  afraid  that  someone  wo  > 

-1  •  Sh-sh  !  Yes,  I  know  it,  .  .  .  but  don  t  you  tell  em  Late 

Honarth  was  thoroughly  discussed  and  his  qualities  pointed  out  with 
Hogarth  was  tnoroug  y  ,  familiar  with  to  understand. 

that  incisive  manner  which  one  had  .  ,  t  battle 

“Whistler  was  reasonable  enough  and  preferre  a  j 
any  day  Often  he  came  to  me  in  the  King’s  Road,  breathing  vengea 
against  this  or  that  person,  but  when  he  went  away  it  was  .nvanaUy 
with  a  fin  sour, re  and  one  of  his  little  notes.  His  clairvoyance  in  the 
matter  of  two  notes  to  Leighton  was  made  manifest  at  my  wntmg-ta  . 
The  p  R  A  wrote  a  lame  explanation  to  Whistler’s  first  query  as  to 
why  he  had  not  been  invited  to  the  Academy  soiree,  as  President  of  the 
R  S  B  A  '  ex-officio,  or  as  Whistler.  He  came  into  my  room  one 
moming’early-before  I,  sluggard,  was  awake  !-and  read  to  me  an 
outline §of  a  note  he  meant  to  write,  and  then  wrote  it,  with  grac. 
of  diction  and  dainty  composition,  and  the  pretty  balanced  Bmterfly 

for  signature.  When  that  was  done,  he  turned  to  me  (I  was  dressi  g 
hen  and  said  :  ‘  Now,  Har-r-rpur-r-r.’  (He  liked  to  burr  those  rs 
in  'down-east’  fashion.)  ‘Now  Har-r-rpur-r-r  I  know  Leighton 
he  wM  jumble  this.  He  will  answer  so-and-so  ’  describing  the  answ 
Leighton  actually  sent),  '  and  then  I’ve  got  him  !  He  chucHed  w 
another  note-the  retort  to  Leighton’s  unwritten  answer ^  °  "r 
not  yet  posted  first  note-which  he  read  to  me.  That  retort  was  sen 
almost  verbatim,  only  one  slight  change  made  necessary  by  wrn  of 
phrase  in  Leighton’s  weak  apology  !  That  was  Ama  g-  8 

soon  burnt  out-the  jest  would  come- and  the  whole  thing  boiled 

itself  down  in  the  World ,  or  a  line  to  ‘  Labby. 


PHAPTFR  XXVII:  THE  STUDIO  IN  THE  FULHAM  ROAD 
THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-FIVE  TO  EIGHTEEN 
EIGHTY-SEVEN. 

In  i88^  Whistler  moved  from  Tite  Street  to  454  Fulham  Road.  A 
shabby  gate  opened  on  a  shabby  lane  leading  to  studios,  one  of  which 
was  his.  Here  Lady  Archibald  Campbell’s  and  M.  Duret  s  portraits 

231 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

were  finished.  Whistler  was  living  at  the  time  with  Maud  in  a  little 
house  close  by,  since  pulled  down,  which  he  called  the  “  Pink  Palace,” 
having  painted  it  himself.  He  was  again  hard  up,  and  M.  Duret, 
coming  to  dinner,  would  buy  a  good  part  of  it  on  the  way  down  and 
arrive,  his  pockets  bulging  with  bottles  and  fruit  and  cake.  Before 
long  Whistler  left  the  “Pink  Palace”  for  the  Vale,  Chelsea  — “an 
amazing  place,  you  might  be  in  the  heart  of  the  country,  and  there, 
two  steps  away,  is  the  King’s  Road.”  It  was  the  first  house  on  the 
right  beyond  the  iron  gates,  now  demolished. 

In  the  Court  and  Society  Review  (July  I,  1886)  Mr.  Malcolm  C. 
Salaman  described  the  Fulham  Road  studio  and  the  work  in  progress : 

“  The  whitewashed  walls,  the  wooden  rafters,  which  partly  form 
a  loft  for  the  stowing  away  of  canvases,  the  vast  space  unencumbered 
by  furniture,  and  the  large  table-palette,  all  give  the  appearance  of 
the  working  place.  .  .  .  Mr.  Whistler  is  not  so  feeble  as  to  aim  at 
theatrical  effects  in  his  costume.  In  the  black  clothes  of  ordinary 
wear,  straight  from  the  street,  he  stands  at  his  easel.  To  those 
accustomed  to  studios  the  completeness  of  the  arrangement  ...  in 
accordance  with  the  scheme  of  the  picture  that  is  in  progress,  is  striking, 
as  striking  indeed  as  the  personality  of  the  artist.  His  whole  body 
seems  instinct  with  energy  and  enthusiasm,  his  face  lit  up  with  flashes 
of  quick  and  strong  thought,  as  that  of  a  man  who  sees  with  his  brains 
as  well  as  with  his  eyes.  .  .  . 

“  A  word,  by  the  way,  about  Mr.  Whistler’s  palette.  As  I  saw  it 
the  other  day,  the  colours  were  arranged  almost  with  the  appearance 
of  a  picture.  In  the  centre  was  white  and  on  one  side  were  the  various 
reds  leading  up  to  black,  while  on  the  other  side  were  the  yellows 
leading  up  to  blue.  .  .  . 

“  And  now  a  few  words  about  some  of  the  pictures  which  the 
master  had  almost  ready  for  exhibition  :  A  full-length  figure  of  a  girl 
in  out-door  black  dress,  with  a  fur  cape  and  a  hat  trimmed  with 
flowers.  She  stands  against  a  dark  background,  and  she  lives  in  her 
frame.  A  full-length  portrait  of  Mr.  Walter  Sickert,  a  favourite 
pupil  of  Mr.  Whistler’s  and  one  of  his  cleverest  disciples.  He  is  in 
evening  dress,  and  stands  against  a  dark  wall.  This  is  a  picture  that 
Velasquez  himself  would  have  delighted  in.  [It  has  vanished.]  A 
full-length  portrait  of  a  man  with  a  Spanish-looking  head,  painted 
232  [1886 


THE  FALLING  ROCKET 
NOCTURNE  IN  BLACK  AND  GOLD 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Mrs.  S.  Untenneyer 


(See  page  168) 


The  Studio  in  the  Fulham  Road 

in  a  manner  that  is  surely  of  the  greatest.  [Perhaps  the  portrait  of 
Chase  or  of  Eldon  ;  both  have  disappeared.]  ...  A  superb  portrait 
of  Mrs.  Godwin  will  rank  among  Mr.  Whistler’s  chefs  d  oeuvre.  F  e 
lady  stands  in  an  ample  red  cloak  over  a  black  dress,  against  red 
draperies,  and  in  her  bonnet  is  a  red  plume.  Her  hands  rest  on  her 
hips,  and  her  attitude  is  singularly  vivacious.  This  picture  has  been 
painted  in  artificial  light,  as  has  also  another  of  a  lady  seated  in  a 
graceful  attitude,  with  one  hand  leaning  over  the  back  of  a  chair,  while 
the  other  holds  a  fan.  She  wears  a  white  evening  dress,  and  is  seen 
against  a  light  background.  [A  picture  we  cannot  identify.]  Besides 
these  Mr  Whistler  showed  me  sketches  of  various  groups  of  several 
girls  on  the  seashore  .  .  .  [The  Six  Projects ]  and  a  sketch  of  Venus , 
lovely  in  colour  and  design,  the  nude  figure  standing  close  to  the  sea, 
with  delicate  gauze  draperies  lightly  lifted  by  the  breeze.  The  studio 
is  full  of  canvases  and  pictures  in  more  or  less  advanced  stages,  and 
on  one  of  the  walls  hang  a  number  of  pastel  studies  of  nude  and  partta  ly 
draped  female  figures.  A  portrait -sketch  in  black  chalk  of  Mr.  Whistler 

by  M.  Rajon  also  hangs  on  the  wall.”  . 

The  Further  Proposition  quoted  by  Mr.  Salaman  can  be  read  m 
Fhe  Gentle  Art.  It  is  Whistler’s  statement  that  a  figure  should  keep 
well  within  the  frame,  and  that  flesh  should  be  painted  according 
to  the  light  in  which  it  is  seen  :  the  answer  to  the  objection  often 
made  to  his  portraits  because  the  “  flesh  was  low  in  tone.”  A  year 
later  it  was  reprinted  in  the  Art  Journal  (April  1887)  by  Mr.  Walter 
Dowdeswell,  whose  article  was  the  first  appreciation  of  Whistler  in 
an  important  English  magazine.  Whistler,  knowing  the  value  of 
what  he  wrote,  meant  that  his  writings  should  be  preserved,  and  he 
gave  to  Mr.  Dowdeswell  for  publication  the  reply  which  he  had  made 
twenty  years  earlier  to  Hamerton’s  criticism  of  the  Symphony  in  White , 
No.  Ill .,  but  which  was  not  then  printed  because  the  Saturday  Review , 
where  the  criticism  appeared,  did  not  publish  correspondence.  Mr. 
Dowdeswell,  describing  the  studio,  adds  a  few  details  omitted  by 
Mr.  Salaman  :  “  The  soupfon  of  yellow  in  the  rugs  and  matting ;  a 
table  covered  with  old  Nankin  china  ;  a  crowd  of  canvases  at  the 
further  end,  and,  pinned  upon  the  wall  on  the  right,  a  number  of 
exquisite  little  notes  of  colour,  and  drawings  of  figures  from  life,  in 
pastels,  on  brown  paper.” 

1887] 


233 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Mr.E.  J.  Horniman,  who  had  a  studio  near  by,  tells  us  that  he  often  saw 
on  the  roof  of  the  omnibus  stable,  just  behind  it,  pictures  put  out  to  dry. 

Many  who  visited  the  studio  were  surprised  to  find  Whistler 
working  in  white.  He  sometimes  wore  a  white  jacket ;  sometimes 
took  off  his  coat  and  waistcoat.  He  was  as  fastidious  with  his 
work  as  with  his  dress.  He  could  not  endure  a  slovenly  palette,  or 
brashes  and  colours  in  disorder,  though  the  palette  had  a  raised  edge 
to  keep  the  colour  off  his  sleeve.  Unfortunately,  after  his  wife’s  death 
he  ruined  the  two  portraits  of  himself  in  the  white  painting  jacket, 
which  he  never  exhibited,  by  changing  the  white  jacket  to  a  black  coat. 

Other  reminiscences  of  Fulham  Road  we  have  from  Mr.  William  M. 
Chase,  who  came  to  London  in  1885,  with  a  suggestion  that  he  and 
Whistler  should  paint  each  other  ;  also,  that  Whistler  should  go  back 
to  America  and  open  a  school.  Well,  you  know,  that  anyway  will 
be  all  right,  Colonel,  as  Whistler  called  Chase.  “  Of  course,  every¬ 
body  will  receive  me  ;  tug-boats  will  come  down  the  Bay  ;  it  will  be 
perfect  !  ”  He  thought  so  seriously  of  going,  that  he  hesitated  to 
send  to  the  London  galleries  work  he  would  want  for  America. 

The  two  portraits  were  begun.  Whistler  painted  a  full-length 
of  Chase,  in  frock-coat  and  top-hat,  a  cane  held  jauntily  across  his 
legs.  As  he  wrote  afterwards,  in  a  letter  included  in  The  Gentle  Art, 
"  h  who  was  charming,  made  him  beautiful  on  canvas,  the  Masher 
of  the  Avenues.”  Whistler  was  delighted  with  what  he  had  done  : 

Look  at  this,  Colonel  !  Look  at  this ;  did  you  ever  see  anything 
finer  ?  ” 

'  It’s  meek  or  modest,  they’ll  have  to  put  on  your  tombstone  !  ” 
Say  and’  not  ‘or’ — meek  and  modest  !  H’rn  ! — well,  you  know, 
splendid,  Chase  !  ” 

Mr.  Chase  remembers  an  evening  when  they  were  to  dine  out, 
and  Whistler  had  to  go  home  to  dress,  and  it  was  almost  the  hour 
before  he  ventured  to  remind  him.  Then  Whistler  was  astonished  : 

W  hat,  Chase,  you  can  think  of  dinner  and  time  when  we  are 
doing  such  beautiful  things  ?  Stay  where  you  are,  and  they  will  be 
glad  to  see  me  whenever  I  come.” 

Everybody  who  has  been  with  him  in  the  studio  knows  how  difficult 
it  was  for  him  to  stop  when  he  was  absorbed  in  his  work.  Mr.  Pen¬ 
nington  says  :  “  Whistler’s  habit  of  painting  long  after  the  hour  when 

m  i188? 


The  Studio  in  the  Fulham  Road 

anybody  could  distinguish  gradations  of  light  and  colour  was  the 
cause  of  much  unnecessary  repainting  and  many  disappointments, 
for  after  leaving  a  canvas  that  seemed  exquisite  in  the  dusk  of  the 
falling  night,  he  would  return  to  it  in  the  glare  of  the  next  morning 
and  find  unexpected  effects  that  had  been  concealed  by  the  twilight. 
Whistler  never  learned  to  hold  his  hand  when  daylight  waned.  I  he 
fascination  of  seeming  to  have  caught  the  values  led  him  far  into  the 
deceiving  shades  of  night  with  often  disastrous  results. 

Whistler’s  portrait  of  Chase  has  vanished  with  many  another. 
Chase  painted  Whistler  also  in  frock-coat,  without  a  hat,  holding 
the  long  cane,  against  a  yellow  wall,  and  his  portrait  remains.  Chase 
intended  stopping  a  short  time  in  London  as  he  passed  on  to  Madrid. 
But  he  found  Whistler  so  delightful  that  his  visit  to  Spain  was  put 
off.  He  has  told  many  incidents  of  these  months  spent  with  Whistler 
in  a  lecture  delivered  in  the  United  States,  and  in  an  aiticle  in  the 
Century.  A  lecturer,  no  doubt,  must  adapt  himself  to  his  audience, 
and  Mr.  Chase  has  dwelt  principally  on  Whistler,  the  man— Whistler, 
the  dandy  ;  Whistler,  the  fantastic,  designing,  for  the  tour  in  America, 
a  white  hansom  with  yellow  reins  and  a  white  and  yellow  livery  for 
the  nigger  driver;  Whistler,  the  traveller.  They  went  together  to 
Belgium  and  Holland.  They  stopped  at  Antwerp  and  saw  the  Inter¬ 
national  Exhibition.  Whistler  said  to  us  once  that  he  could  never  be 
ill-natured,  only  wicked,  and  this  was  one  of  the  occasions  when  he 
was  wicked.  In  the  gallery  he  refused  to  look  at  any  pictures  except 
those  that  told  stories,  asking  Chase  if  the  mouse  would  really  scare 
the  cat  or  the  baby  swallow  the  mustard-pot.  The  first  interest  hv. 
showed  was  in  the  work  of  Alfred  Stevens.  Before  it  he  stood  long ; 
at  last,  with  his  little  finger  pointing  to  a  passage  in  the  small  canvas, 
“  H’m,  Colonel !  you  know  one  would  not  mind  having  painted 
that  !  ’  Chase  grew  nervous  as  they  approached  the  wall  devoted 
to  Bastien-Lepage,  whom  he  admired,  and  he  decided  to  lea\  e  Whistler. 
But  Whistler  would  not  hear  of  it.  “  I’ll  say  only  one  word,  Chase,” 
he  promised.  Then  they  came  to  the  Bastiens,  H  m,  h  m,  Colonel, 
the  one  word  — School !  ”  On  the  journey  from  Antwerp  to  Amsterdam 
two  Germans  were  in  the  train:  “Well,  you  know.  Colonel,  if  the 
Almighty  ever  made  a  mistake  it  was  when  he  created  the  German  !  ” 
Whistler  said  at  tfie  end  of  a  few  minutes.  Chase  told  him  that  if 
1883]  23$ 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

he  cou'd  speak  German  he  might  understand  their  interesting  talk. 
Whistler  answered  m  fluent  German  and  talked  nothing  else,  until, 

out  of 1 ' rlm’  Chre  C0U,dIendure  k  n°  »nd  left.  Whistler  leaned 

out  of  the  window  as  the  train  started,  "Think  it  over,  Chase,  and 

to-morrow  morning  you  will  come  on  to  Amsterdam,  and  you’ll  tell 
me  that  I  m  right  about  the  Germans  !  ” 

One  incident  not  told  in  print  by  Chase  is  that  while  in  London 
he  was  the  owner  of  the i  Mother.  An  American  had  given  him  money 

rn^ULP1CrUreS,  7  ^  f°Und  that  the  M°ther  Was  to  be  had 

from  Mr.  Graves  for  one  hundred  pounds  he  bought  it  but  first  was 

thaTh  t0.  .WhlStler,  GraVes-  Wh5stI^,  delighted  to  learn 

that  he  could  control  the  pictures  deposited  with  the  Pall  Mall  firm 

agreed  to  everything,  but  the  agreement  was  settled  the  day  before’ 

starting  for  Antwerp,  and  when  Chase  got  the  money  from  his  bankers 

to“  TtC  GraVCS  GaIIer7  lf  W3S  d°Sed’  and  he  gave  the  cbecluc 

to  Whist  er.  The  picture  was  his,  but  only  during  the  time  of  Whistler’s 
absence  from  London,  for  on  his  return  Whistler  could  not  bear  to 

Zl  T  t  f  °™Pd^nt  the  cbeque  back  to  Chase-or  it  may  be 
hat  the  trip  with  Chase  helped  him  to  change  his  mind. 

All  this  is  characteristic,  but  it  would  be  interesting  to  hear  less 
rfimuTT  w\dTre  uf  h‘SWOrlt  fr°m  Mr'  Chase’  who  gives  onl7  * 

g  impse  of  Whistler  the  artist,  and  then  in  lighter  moods.  He  tells 
o  one  occasion  when  an  American  wanted  to  buy  some  etchings,  and 
they  were  to  lunch  with  him  in  the  City  to  arrange  the  matter.  Taking 
a  hansom,  late  of  course,  they  passed  a  grocer’s  where  Whistler  stopped 
the  driver  :  Well,  Chase,  what  do  you  think  ?  If  I  ge,  him  to  move 
the  box  of  oranges  l  What  l  ”  And  then,  still  later,  they  drove  on. 
Another  time  Chase  expressed  surprise  at  Whistler’s  refusing  to  deliver 
a  picture  to  the  lady  who  had  bought  it.  But  Whistler  explained  : 

You  know,  Chase,  the  people  don’t  really  want  anything  beautiful, 
rhey  fill  a  room  by  chance  with  beautiful  things,  and  some  little 
rumpery  something  over  the  mantelpiece  gives  the  whole  damned 
show  away.  _  And  if  they  pay  a  hundred  pounds  or  so  for  a  picture, 
hey  think  it  belongs  to  them.  Well-why-it  should  only  be  theirs 
or  a  while  ;  hung  on  their  walls  that  they  may  rejoice  in  it  and  then 
returned  Once,  it  is  said,  a  lady  drove  up  to  the  studio  and  told 
nm  :  1  have  bought  one  of  your  pictures,  it  is  beautiful,  but  as  it 

236  [1885 


NOCTURNE  IN  BLUE  AND  GOLD 
OLD  BATTERSEA  BRIDGE 

OIL 

In  the  National  Gallery  of  British  Art,  Tate  Gailery 


(Seepage  171) 


The  Studio  in  the  Fulham  Road 

is  always  at  exhibitions  I  never  see  it.  But  I’m  told  you  have  it. 

“  Dear  lady,”  said  Whistler,  “  you  have  been  misinformed,  it  is  not 
here.”  And  she  drove  away.  Later  he  found  it  :  “  H’m,  she  was 
right  about  one  thing,  it  is  beautiful.  But  because  she’s  paid  hundreds 
of  pounds  for  it,  she  thinks  she  ought  to  have  it  all  the  time.  She  s 

lucky  if  she  gets  it  now  and  then.”  . 

It  must  be  admitted  that  it  is  not  easy  from  any  standpoint  to 
write  of  Whistler  during  the  years  that  followed  his  murn  from 
Venice.  The  decade  between  1880  and  1890  is  the  fullest  of  his  iu^ 
life.  It  was  during  these  ten  years  that  he  opened  his  one  man 
shows  amidst  jeers,  and  closed  them  with  success.  It  was  during 
these  ten  years  that  he  conquered  society,  though  society  never  rea  lse 
it.  It  was  during  these  ten  years  that,  to  make  himself  known,  he 
became  in  the  streets  of  London  the  observed  of  all  observers,  developing 
extraordinary  costumes,  attracting  to  himself  the  attention  he  wanted 
to  attract.  It  was  during  these  ten  years  that  he  began  to  wrap  nimsel 
in  mystery,  as  Degas  said  of  him,  and  then  go  off  and  get  photographed, 
when,  as  Degas  also  said,  he  acted  as  if  he  had  no  genius  :  but  mystery 
and  pose  were  part  of  the  armour  he  put  on  to  protect  himself  from, 
and  draw  to  himself,  a  foolish  public.  It  was  during  these  ten  years 
that  he  invented  the  Followers-and  got  rid  of  them  ;  that  he  flitted 
from  house  to  house,  from  studio  to  studio,  and  through  England, 
France,  Belgium,  and  Holland,  until  it  is  impossible  to  keep  pace 
with  him  ;  that  he  captured  the  Press,  though  it  is  still  unconscious 
of  its  capture  ;  that  he  concentrated  the  interest  of  England,  of  the 
whole  world  upon  him,  with  one  object  in  view-that  is,  to  make 
England,  the  whole  world,  look  at  his  work.  For,  as  he  said,  if  he  had 
not° made  people  look  at  it  they  never  would  have  done  so.  They  never 
understood  it,  they  hated  it.  They  do  not  understand  it  to-day, 
and  they  hate  it  the  more  because  he  has  succeeded  and  they  have  failed 
in  their  endeavours  to  ignore  or  ruin  him.  Even  now  that  it  is  too 
late,  they  are  crawling  from  their  graves  and  spitting  at  him,  flinging 
mud  at  his  memory. 

In  these  crowded  years  two  events  stand  out  with  special  prominence, 
his  Ten  O'Clock  and  his  invasion  of  the  British  Artists.  One  states 
definitely  his  views  on  art  ;  the  other  shows  as  definitely  the  position 
he  had  attained  among  artists. 

1885] 


237 


James  McNeill  Whistler 


™TeigS' S  ten  °’clock-  ™e  years  eigh- 

EEN  EIGHT-FOUR  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-EIGHT 

Into  The  Ten  O’Clock  Whistler  put  all  he  had  learned  of  art,  which 

has  toll us°,Let™h  ffk  and  eVerkstin«-  Mr.  W.  C.  Alexander 
ha  to.d  us  that  when  he  listened  to  The  Ten  0’ Clock  at  Prince’s  Hall 

nothing  in  it  was  new  to  him  ;  he  had  heard  it  for  years  from  Whistler 

over  the  dinner-table.  The  only  new  thing  was  Whisto’fdete 

ss: 'z  l°  zi  tpubIic  wu he  had  said  in  ^  He  waS  r:; 

stranee  hours  th  "  Wln'er  °f  i884'85'  He  would  come  « 
nge  hours  with  a  page  or  two  to  read  to  Mr.  Cole,  in  whose  diarv 

^t  October  until  February,  note  follows  note ’of  *2  tom 

October  24  (1884).  Whistler  to  dine.  We  passed  the  evening 
writing  out  his  views  on  Ruskin,  art,  etc.  S 

and  m^1"  27'  '*immy  t0  dm“er’  continuing  notes  as  to  himself 

“  0‘toh‘T  28'  Siting  out  Whistler’s  notes  for  him. 

on  art  m  fr  ^  IT”7  “  dine’  Writing  notes  as  to  his  opinions 
Fn  r  A m  ’  and  dlscussln«  whether  to  offer  them  for  publication  to 

Mr  gT h‘  1 T^Z  by  C°mynS  Carr’  or  to  whom  ?  ” 

1  '.  '  0^mes’  ln  Chelsea  house,  was  often  roused  by  the 

arp  ting  and  double-knock,  followed  by  Whistler  with  a  page  or 

paragraph  for  his  approval.  Mr.  Menpes  writes  that  “  scores  of  times- 

ErZnUTft  °£  timeS"he  Pa“d  up  and  dow“  ‘he 

lecture  ”  A  m  “V’  repeatmg  to  me  s«itences  from  the  marvellous 
broth!;.-  inA"°"S  St0ry'  During  a  d^’  illness  at  his 

caret  Mrs  3?  f  \\  W  Wh“  U1’  he  went  “>  taken 
care  of,  Mrs.  Whistler  recalls  him  sitting,  propped  up  by  pillows 

reading  passages  to  the  doctor  and  herself.  7  P  ’ 

noth!!?13!  f°Cn  afCk  “  the  EngKA  Magazine  came  to 

in  he  L  7  NT“ber  1884  Lord  P°werscourt,  Mr.  Ludovici  says 

“  t  A’  I9°6)’ inTited  Whi$tier  t0  Iceland  to  distribute 

approoti  TT  t  3nd  Speal  to  Students>  and  nothing  was  more 
appropnatc  than  the  notes  he  had  written  down. 

Mr.  Cole  records  : 

"  November  ,9  (,884).  Whistler  called  and  told  us  how  he  was 

[1884 


The  Ten  O’Clock 

invited  to  Ireland,  where  he  was  sending  some  of  his  words,  and  would 

'“ThVin^a^ncame  from  the  Dublin  Sketching  Club,  which  held 
its  Son  in  Leinster  Hall.  Three  other  ^er.cans  Sa  nt 

the  honorary  secretary,  sends  us  this  account  .  , 

“  He  was  exceedingly  generous  to  a  club  of  strangers,  en  mg 
twenty-five  of  his  works.  This  collection  included  the  Mother,  y 
MeuI,  Carlyle,  a  number  of  Nocturnes,  and  other  oils,  vctaet-ccAonr 
and  pastels  The  pictures  had  to  be  hung  together  in  a  group.  » 

I  tasTo  interested'  in  them,  with  Mr.  Whistler’s  permission  I  had 
them  photographed.  He  never  asked  for  rights  or  commission,  bu 
the  most  gracious,  generous  way,  gave  us  the  permission  to  use  he 
negatives  as  we  liked.  The  exhibition  was  hardly  open  before  me 
critical  music  began,  and  in  the  papers  and  in  conversation^  reguar 
tempest  arose  that  was  highly  diverting  to  Mr.  .  '  ,  ,  .  ,  , 

me  to  send  him  everything  said  about  the  exhibition,  and  h»  kt«rs 
show  he  quite  enjoyed  all  the  ferment.  The  w  oe  o  .  .  . 

convulsed  and  many  went  to  Molesworth  Street  to  see  the  exhibition 
who  rareiy  went  to  see  anything  of  the  kind.  Then  a  terrible  con¬ 
vulsion  took  place  in  the  club  :  a  group  of  members  we  had 
who  photographed,  got  together,  and  drew  up  reso  utions,  that  never 
again  should  Inch  pictures  be  exhibited.  None  °£  ““‘t 

even  paint.  The  talent  of  the  club  replied  by  having  Mr.  Whistler 
elected  as  hon.  member,  and  it  was  carried,  despite  intense  resistence 
I  took  an  active  part  in  all  this.  It  was  with  a  view  to  helping  Mr. 
Whistler  that  I  did  my  best  to  have  his  Ten  O’Clock  given  m  u  ■  in. 
He  was  at  first  disposed  to  come  over,  but  other  matters  prevented 
and  the  matter  dropped.  During  the  time  of  the  exhibition,  I  me 
my  utmost  to  sell  the  pictures,  and  an  offer  was  made  by  a  fue 
to  purchase  the  Mother  and  the  Carlyle,  which  seemed  to  promise  well, 
but  ultimately  stopped.  I  did  induce  the  friend  to  purchase  PucaitUy 
which  had  been  No.  9,  Nocturne  in  Grey  and  Gold- Piccadilly  (water¬ 
colour),  in  his  exhibition  in  Bond  Street  that  May  [  ow  *  *1' 
He  was  very  much  pleased  indeed,  and  sent  the  Right  Hon.  Jonathan 
Hogg,  P.C.,  a  receipt,  greatly  to  Mr.  Hogg’s  amusement,  for  an 

1884]  239 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

impression  was  rife  that  he  never  did  attend  to  business.  I  know 
from  friends  who  knew  Mr.  Whistler,  how  much  pleased  he  was 
not  only  with  the  purchase  of  his  pictures  but  with  the  commotion 
tnat  the  exhibition  caused.” 

Whistler  did  not  give  up  the  idea  of  a  lecture.  Archibald  Forbes 
ear  1m  read,  was  impressed,  and  introduced  him  to  Mrs.  D’Oyly 
^arte.  She  had  managed  a  lecture  tour  for  Forbes,  now  she  agreed 
to  arrange  an  evening  for  Whistler.  She  has  told  us  of  his  attention 
,f!l  The  ldea  was  absolutely  his,”  she  writes  us,  “and  all 
did  was  to  see  to  the  business  arrrangements.  You  can  imagine  how 
enthusiastic  he  was  over  it  all,  and  how  he  made  one  enthusiastic  too  ” 
She  was  about  to  produce  The  Mikado,  and,  sure  that  he  would  find 
her  in  her  office  at  the  Savoy  Theatre,  he  would  appear  there  every 
evening  to  talk  things  over,  or  would  send  Mr.  Walter  Sickert  with 
a  message.  Whistler  delighted  in  her  office,  a  tiny  room  lit  by  a  lamp 
on  her  desk,  making  strange  effects,  but  his  only  records  of  his  many 
visits  are  m  the  etchings,  Savoy  Sc  avoiding  and  Miss  Lenoir,  Mrs. 
iJ  Oyly  Carte  s  name  before  her  marriage.  Prince’s  Flail  was  taken 
Whistler  suggested  the  hour.  People  were  not  to  rush  to  him  from 
inner  as  to  the  theatre  ;  therefore  ten  was  as  early  as  one  could  expect 
them,  and  the  hour  gave  the  nam  e—Tbe  Ten  O' Clock.  He  designed 
the  ticket,  he  had  it  enlarged  into  a  poster,  he  chose  the  offices  where 
tickets  should  be  sold.  There  was  a  rehearsal  at  Prince’s  Flail  on 
February  19  (1885),  Mrs.  D’Oyly  Carte  and  some  of  the  Followers 
sitting  m  front  to  tell  him  if  his  voice  carried.  Whistler  had  his  lecture 
by  heart  his  delivery  was  excellent,  he  needed  no  coaching,  only  an 
occasional  warning  to  raise  his  voice.  It  was  because  he  feared  his 
voice  would  not  carry  that  he  gave  his  nightly  rehearsals  on  the 
iSmbankment,  Mr.  Menpes  says. 

On  February  20,  1885,  the  hall  w^as  crowded.  Reporters  expressed 
the  general  feeling  when  they  wondered  whether  “the  eccentric 
artist  was  going  to  sketch,  to  pose,  to  sing,  or  to  rhapsodise,”  and  w'ere 
frankly  astonished  when  the  “amiable  eccentric”  chose  to  appear 
simply  as  “a  jaunty,  unabashed,  composed,  and  self-satisfied  gentleman 
armed  with  an  opera  hat  and  an  eyeglass.”  Others  were  amazed  to' 
see  him  “  attired  in  faultless  evening  dress.”  The  Followers  compared 
the  figure  in  black  against  the  black  background  to  the  Sarasate,  and 
2^°  [ 1885 


Oq 


UNDER  A  VENETIAN  BRIDGE 


Thte  Ten  O’Clock 

they  recall  his  hat  carefully  placed  on  the  table  and  the  long  cane  as 
carefully  stood  against  the  wall.  Oscar  Wilde  called  him  “  a  miniature 
Mephistopheles  mocking  the  majority.”  The  unprejudiced  saw  the 
dignity  of  his  presence  and  felt  the  truth  and  beauty  of  his  words. 
Mrs.  Anna  Lea  Merritt  writes  us : 

“  It  is  always  a  delight  to  remember  that  actually  once  Mr.  Whistler 
was  really  shy !  Those  who  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  the  first 
Ten  O'Clock  remember  that  when  he  came  before  his  puzzled  and 
distinguished  audience  there  were  a  few  minutes  of  very  palpable 
stage  fright.” 

He  had  notes,  but  he  seldom  referred  to  them.  He  held  his  audience 
from  the  first,  and  Mrs.  D’Oyly  Carte  recalls  the  hush  in  the  hall 
when  he  came  to  his  description  of  London  transfigured,  a  fairyland  in 
the  night.  “  I  went  to  laugh  and  I  stayed  to  praise,”  is  the  late  Lewis 
F.  Day’s  account  to  us,  and  others  were  generous  enough  to  make  the 
same  admission.  Whistler  forced  his  audience  to  listen  because  he  spoke 
with  conviction.  The  Ten  O'Clock  was  the  statement  of  truths  which 
his  contemporaries  were  doing  their  best  to  forget.  When  we  read 
it  to-day,  our  surprise  is  that  things  so  obvious  needed  saying.  Yet 
the  need  exists  to-day  more  than  ever.  Almost  every  one  of  Whistler  s 
propositions  and  statements  has  been  traduced  or  ignored  by  critics, 
who  are  incapable  of  leading  thought  or  are  dealers  in  disguise,  and 
painters  compare  their  puny  selves  and  petty  financial  scrapes  to 
Whistler’s  magnificent  efforts  and  complete  success  in  his  battles  for 
art  and  his  reputation. 

To  this  lecture  we  owe  the  most  interesting  profession  of  artistic 
faith  ever  made  by  an  artist.  At  the  time  it  was  given  there  was  a 
reaction,  outside  the  Academy,  against  the  anecdote  and  sentiment 
of  Victorian  art.  Ruskin  through  his  books,  the  Pre-Raphaelites 
through  their  pictures,  had  spread  the  doctrine  that  art  was  a  question 
of  ethics  and  industry.  Pater  preached  that  it  belonged  to  the  past. 
William  Morris  taught  that  it  sprang  from  the  people  and  to  the  people 
must  return.  Strange,  sad-coloured  creatures  clad  themselves  in  strange, 
sad-coloured  garments  and  admired  each  other.  Many  besides  Oscar 
Wilde  profitably  peddled  in  the  provinces  what  they  prigged  or  picked 
up  ;  artists  proclaimed  the  political  importance  of  art  ;  parsons  dis¬ 
covered  in  it.  a  new  salvation.  “  Art  was  upon  the  town,”  as  Whistler 
1885]  "  Q  z4l 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

rid>J iUJ  e,““  “d  busin“s>  fashi0"  “d  socialism  had  captured 
t.  The  Ten  O  Clock,  was  a  protest  against  the  crimes  committed  in 
the  name  of  art,  against  the  belief  that  art  belonged  to  the  past  or 
concerned  the  people,  that  its  object  was  to  teach  or  to  elevate  “  Art 
and  Joy  go  together,”  he  said,  the  world’s  masters  were  never  reformers 

e“Vryw'heSre0rl  ThS’  h"’  C°ntent  ™h  *hdr  surround“Ss>  f°»"d  beaut^ 
everywhere  There  was  no  great  past,  no  mean  present,  for  art,  no 

drawing  of  lines  between  the  marbles  of  the  Greek  and  the  fans  and 

roidenes  of  Japan.  There  was  no  artistic  period,  no  art -loving 

peop  e.  rt  happened,  and,  in  a  few  eloquent  words,  he  told  the 

history  of  its  happening  and  the  coming  of  the  cheap  and  tawdry 

w  en  the  taste  of  the  tradesman  supplanted  the  science  of  the  artist’ 

and  the  multitude  rejoiced.  Art  is  a  science-the  science  by  which 

the  artist  picks  and  chooses  and  groups  the  elements  contained  in 

Nature,  that  beauty  may  result.  For  “  Nature  is  very  rarely  right 

to  such  an  extent  even,  that  it  might  almost  be  said  that  Nature  is 

usua  y  wrong.  He  has  been  so  frequently  misunderstood  that  it 

may  be  well  to  emphasise  the  meaning  of  these  two  assertions,  the  rock 

upon  which  his  faith  was  founded.  Art  happens  because  the  artist 

may  happen  anywhere  at  any  time  ;  art  is  a  science  not  because  painters 

maintain  that  it  is  concerned  with  laws  of  light  or  chemistry  of  colours 

or  scientific  problems,  but  because  it  is  exact  in  its  methods  and  in  its 

ults.  The  artist  can  leave  no  more  to  chance  than  the  chemist 

or  the  botanist  or  the  biologist.  Knowledge  may  and  does  increase 

and  develop,  but  the  laws  of  art  are  unalterable.  Because  art  is  a  science 

the  critic  who  is  not  an  artist  speaks  without  authority  and  would 

prize  a  picture  as  a  “  hieroglyph  or  symbol  of  story,”  or  for  anything 

save  the  painters  poetry  which  is  the  reason  for  its  existence,  “  the 

amazing  invention  that  shall  have  put  form  and  colour  into  such  perfect 

harmony,  that  exquisiteness  is  the  result.”  The  conditions  of  art 

are  degraded  by  these  “  middlemen,”  the  critics,  and  by  the  foolish 

w  o  would  go  back  because  the  thumb  of  the  mountebank  jerked  the 

other  way  He  laughed  at  the  pretence  of  the  State  as  fosterer  of 

art  art  that  roams  as  she  will,  from  the  builders  of  the  Parthenon 

to  the  opium-eaters  of  Nankin,  from  the  Master  at  Madrid  to  Hokusai 

at  the  foot  of  Fusiyama.  His  denial  of  an  artistic  period  or  an  art-loving 

people  was  his  defence  of  art  against  those  who  would  bound  it  by 

2+*  [1885 


The  Ten  O’Clock 

dates  and  confine  it  within  topographical  limits.  He  meant,  not 
that  a  certain  period  might  not  produce  artists  and  people  to  appreciate 
hem  but  that  art  is  fndependent  of  time  and  place,  “seeling  and 
finding  the  beautiful  in  all  conditions  and  in  all  times,  as  did  her 
high  priest,  Rembrandt,  when  he  saw  picturesque  grande-ai r  and  nob le 
dignity  in  the  Jews’  quarter  of  Amsterdam,  and  lamented  not  that 
inhabitants  were  not  Greeks. 

•'  As  did  Tintoret  and  Paul  Veronese,  among  the  Venetians,  while 
not  halting  to  change  the  brocaded  silks  for  the  classic  draperies  of 

Ath“  As  did,  at  the  Court  of  Philip,  Velasquez,  whose  Infantas,  clad  m 
inxsthetic  hoops,  are,  as  works  of  Art,  of  the  same  quality  as  the  E  gin 

MaIAb!  did,  he  might  have  added,  Whistler,  during  the  reign  of  Victoria 
in  his  portraits  and  Nocturnes  which  have  carried  on  the  art  of  the 

"OTHi’s  argument  was  clear  and  his  facts,  misunderstood,  are  becoming 
the  cliches  of  this  generation.  Critics,  photographers,  even  Roya 
Academicians  have  appropriated  the  truths  of  Jhe  Jen  0  Clock  o 
strange  things  are  happening  to  the  memory  of  the  Idle  APPr““. 
He  made  his  points  wittily ;  he  chose  his  words  and  rounded 
sentences  with  the  feeling  for  the  beautiful  that  ruled  his  painting. 
ji,  Je„  O'Clock  has  passed  into  literature.  Those  Sunday  wrestlings 
with  Scripture  in  Lowell,  that  getting  of  the  Psalms  by  heart  at 
Stonington  developed  a  style  the  literary  artist  may  envy.  This 
style  in  Art  and.  Art  Critics  had  its  roughness.  He  pruned  and  chaste 
it  in  his  letters  to  the  papers,  devoting  infinite  thought  and  trouble 
to  them,  for  he,  more  than  most  men,  believed  that  whatever  he  had 
to  do  was  worth  doing  with  all  his  might.  He  would  write  and  rewrite 
them,  and  drive  editors  mad  by  coming  at  the  busiest  hour  to  correc 
the  proof,  working  over  it  an  hour  or  more,  and  then  returning  to 
change  a  word  or  a  comma,  while  press  and  printers  waited,  and  he 
got  so  excited  once  he  forgot  his  eyeglass-and  the  editor  stole  i  , 
and  of  course,  later  lost  it.  In  his  correspondence  he  was  as  scrupulous, 
and' we  have  known  him  make  a  rough  draft  of  a  letter  to  his  bootmaker 
in  Paris,  and  ask  us  to  dictate  it  to  him  while  he  wrote  his  fair  copy, 
as  a  final  touch  addressing  it  to  M.  - ,  Ma.tre  Bottur.  In  <Ihe 

1885]  H} 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

l‘n  ,°’Cl °lk  he  bf0USht  his  StJ,le  to  P«f«tion.  His  philosophy 

S ,rUthS  °f  art’ ™  «  "ith  th'  L«'r  ^ 

tfeated  kc,UK  “  **  treated  his  exhibitions. 

The  Daily  News  was  almost  alone  in  owning  that  its  quality  was  a 

surprise.  The  Times  had  the  country  with  it  when  it  said  that  "  the 
audtence,  hoping  for  an  hour’s  amusement  from  the  eccentric  genius 
of  the  artist,  were  not  disappointed.”  “The  eccentric  freak  of  an 

Tele  le’  ,humo™us’  and  accomplished  gentleman,”  was  the  Daily 
Telegraph  s  opinion.  Oscar  Wilde,  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  was  shocked 
hat  an  artist  should  talk  of  art,  and  was  unwilling  to  accept  the  fact 
that  only  a  painter  is  a  judge  of  painting.  This  was  natural,  for  as 
an  authority  on  art  Wilde  had  made  himself  ridiculous.  Nor  could 
he  assent  to  much  that  Whistler  said,  for,  as  a  lecturer,  he  had  been 

fM  ,he  *sthMic  movement,  against 
which  The  Ten  O'clock  was  a  protest.  But  he  was  more  generous 

han  other  critics  in  acknowledging  the  beauty  of  the  lecture  and  the 
earnestness  of  the  lecturer,  though  he  could  not  finish  his  notice  without 
one  parting  shot  at  the  man  whose  target  he  had  often  been:  “that 

And  Imlt  °dd  °/t thC  ^  featest  “asters  of  painting  is  my  opinion. 

concurs  ”  Tb  ’  “  f‘S  °pmion’  Mr ’  Whistkr  ^mself  entirely 

“  Th,1S  Was  not  the  s°«  of  thing  Whistler  could  pass  over 

The  cZl  Jrt.  t0  3  C01'r'SP°nd“«  made  another  chapter  in 

Whistler  repeated  The  Ten  O'clock  several  times;  early  in  March 
before  the  British  Artists,  and  later  in  the  same  month '(the  a4th) 
before  the  University  Art  Society  at  Cambridge,  where  he  spent  the 

thf^Wh-H811^1^'7  ‘I?1™’  Wh°  Wr'teS  US’  “  be>™>d  the  “ere 
that  Whistler  dined  with  me  in  Hall  and  had  some  chat  there  with 

rince  Edward— -an  amiable  youth  who  was  a  little  scared  at  the  idea 

o  avmg  to  talk  art  (of  which  he  was  blankly  ignorant)  but  whom 

p“r  wLr:  ;;ty  r easc ;  1  w  n°  ~ 

On  April  30  he  gave  his  lecture  at  Oxford.  Mr.  Sidney  Starr 
went  down  with  Whistler  and  his  brother,  •  Doctor  Willie,’  to  the 
■  he  lecture  hall  was  small,  with  primitive  benches,  and  the 
dience  was  small.  The  lecture  was  delivered  impressively,  but 

W  [1885 


l  See  page  190) 


THE  DOORWAY 

ETCHING.  G.  188 

By  permission  of  the  Fine  Art  Society 


The  Ten  O’Clock 

lacking  the  original  emphasis  and  sparkle.  Whistler  hated  to  do 

anything  twice  over,  and  this  was  the  fourth  time.” 

The  fifth  time  was  about  the  same  date,  at  the  Royal  Academy 
Student’s  Club  in  Golden  Square,  an  unexplained  accident,  and  the 
sixth  at  the  Fine  Art  Society’s.  Dr.  Moncure  Conway  wrote  us^a 
year  before  his  death  that  he  heard  The  Ten  O'Clock  at  Lady  Jeune  s, 
but  Lady  Jeune  does  not  recollect  it.  Whistler  we  are  sure  would 
have  remembered  and  recorded  it.  There  was  a  suggestion,  which 
came  to  nothing,  of  taking  it  on  an  American  tour  and  to  Pans.  It 
was  heard  twice  more  in  London,  once  at  the  Grosvenor  Gallery  in 
February  1888.  Val  Prinsep  recalled  Whistler’s  “  pressing  invita¬ 
tion  ”  for  him  and  Leighton  to  attend  :  .  .  , 

“  During  the  time  he  was  president  of  the  British  Artists,  he  and 
the  other  heads  of  art  sometimes  were  asked  to  dine  by  our  President 
(Leighton).  ‘  Rather  late  to  ask  me,  don’t  you  think  .  Whistler 
remarked.  After  dinner,  he  pressed  Leighton  and  me  to  come  to  is 
lecture,  which  was  to  be  delivered  a  few  days  after.  ‘  What  s  the  use 
of  me  coming  }  ’  Leighton  said  sadly.  ‘  You  know  I  should  not^  agree 
with  what  you  said,  my  dear  Whistler  ?  ’  *  Oh,’  cried  W histler,  come 

all  the  same  ;  nobody  takes  me  seriously,  don’t  you  know  • 

It  was  heard  for  the  last  time  three  years  later  (1891)  at  the  Chelsea 
Arts  Club,  which  had  just  started  and  proposed  to  hold  lectures  an 
discussions ;  it  now  gives  fancy-dress  balls  and  boxing  matches.  Before 
the  club  found  a  home  it  was  suggested  that  the  first  of  these  meetings 
should  be  at  the  Cadogan  Pier  Hotel,  and  Whistler  was  invited  to 
read  The  Ten  O'Clock,  but  his  answer  was,  “  No,  gentlemen,  let  us  go 
to  no  beer  hotel,”  and  The  Ten  O'Clock  was  put  off  until  the  club¬ 
house  in  the  King’s  Road  was  opened. 

The  Ten  O'Clock,  originally  set  up  by  Mr.  Way,  was  published 
by  Messrs.  Chatto  and  Windus  in  the  spring  of  1888.  It  had  much 
the  same  reception  when  it  was  printed  as  when  it  was  delivered.  The 
only  criticism  Whistler  took  seriously  was  an  article  by  Swinburne 
in  the  Fortnightly  Review  for  June  1888. 

Swinburne  objected  to  Whistler’s  praise  of  Japanese  art,  to  his 
rigid  line  between  art  and  literature,  to  his  incursion  as  “  brilhant 
amateur”  into  the  region  of  letters,  to  his  denial  of  the  possibility 
of  an  artistic  period  or  an  art-loving  people,  and  to  much  else  besides. 

1888]  245 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

All  tflus  might  have  passed,  but  Swinburne  went  further.  He  questioned 
the  seriousness  of  Whistler.  He  twisted  Whistler’s  meaning  to  suit  his 
weighty  humour,  and  then,  in  a  surprising  vein  of  insolence,  re-echoed 
the  popular  verdict.  The  witty  tongue  must  be  thrust  into  the  smiling 
cheek,  he  thought,  when  Whistler  wrote,  “  Art  and  Joy  go  together,” 
which  meant,  according  to  Swinburne,  that  tragic  art  is  not  art  at  all. 

Arter  that,  let  s  have  a  glass  of  wine,’  said  a  famous  countryman 
of  Mr.  Whistler  s,  on  the  memorable  occasion  when  he  was  impelled 
to  address  his  friend  Mr.  Brick  in  the  immortal  words,  ‘  keep  cool, 
Jefferson,  don’t  bust.’  The  admonition  may  not  improbably  be 
required  by  the  majority  of  readers  who  come  suddenly  and  unawares 
upon  this  transcendent  and  pyramidal  pleasantry.  The  laughing  muse 
of  the  lecturer,  quam  Jocus  circumvolat ,’  must  have  glanced  round  in 
expectation  of  the  general  appeal,  ‘After  that,  let  us  take  breath.’ 
And  having  done  so,  they  must  have  remembered  that  they  were  not 
in  a  serious  world;  that  they  were  in  the  fairyland  of  fans,  in  the 
paradise  of  pipkins,  in  the  limbo  of  blue  china,  screens,  pots,  plates, 
jars,  joss-houses,  and  all  the  fortuitous  frippery  of  Fusiyama.” 

This  is  quoted  as  an  example  of  Swinburnian  humour.  The  rest 
of  the  article  is  offensive  and  ridiculous  —  the  brilliant  poet  but 
ponderous  prose  writer  trying  to  be  funny-with  references  to  the 
“  Jes^er  of  genius,”  to  the  “  tumbler  or  clown,”  to  the  “  gospel  of  the 
giin.  It  was  this  that  hurt— -that  Swinburne,  the  poet,  “also  mis¬ 
understood,”  could  laugh  with  the  crowd  at  the  “  eccentricity  ”  and 
levity  of  Whistler.  Swinburne’s  criticism  was  easy  to  answer,  and 
was  answered  in  two  of  the  comments  printed,  with  extracts  from 
the  article,  in  The  Gentle  Art.  “  That  tragic  art  is  not  art  at  all  ” 
is,  Whistler  wrote,  Swinburne’s  “own  inconsequence,”  and  this 
Reflection  appears  on  the  opposite  margin  : 

Is  not,  then,  the  funeral  hymn  a  gladness  to  the  singer,  if  the 
verse  be  beautiful  ? 

“Certainly  the  funeral  monument,  to  be  worthy  the  Nation’s 
sorrow  buried  beneath  it,  must  first  be  a  joy  to  the  sculptor  who 
designed  it. 

The  Bard  s  reasoning  is  of  the  People.  The  Tragedy  is  theirs. 

As  one  of  them  the  man  may  weep — yet  will  the  artist  rejoice,  for  to 
him  is  not  ‘  a  thing  of  beauty  a  joy  for  ever  ’  ?  ” 

246 


[1888 


The  Ten  O’Clock 

To  the  World  Whistler  wrote  the  letter  called  "  Freeing  a  Last 
Friend  ”  in  k  Gentle  Art.  It  is  short,  the  sting  in  the  concludmg 

P”'®Thank  you,  my  dear!  I  have  lost  a  «»/*>«;  but  then,  I 
have  gained  an  acquaintance-one  Algernon  Swinburne-  outsider 

~PTheeie”ter  was  sent  to  Swinburne  before  it  appeared  in  the  World. 
We  have  been  told  that  it  was  received  at  Putney  one  Sunday  morning 
when  Mr  Watts-Dunton  was  to  breakfast  with  Whistler.  Suspec  ing 
ThW  the  letter  might  not  be  friendly,  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  took  it 
unopened  with  him  to  Chelsea  and  begged  Whistler  to  withdraw  it. 
Whistler  refused.  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  left  the  house  without  break¬ 
fasting  and  the  same  day  the  letter  was  delivered  to  Swinburne,  who 
after  reading  it,  pale  with  rage,  swore  that  never  again  would  he  spea 
to  Whistle"  As  a  result,  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  we  b^e  was  at 
pains  to  avoid  Whistler,  fearful  of  a  rupture  with  him.  Mr.  Meredi 
had  discovered  years  before  that  the  springs  in  Whis,  er  were  prompt 
for  the  challenge,  and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  he  had  reason  to  see  a 
challenge  in  Swinburne’s  article.  How  much  it  hurt  he  did  not  concea 
Inlrl?  Gentle  Art,  where  the  extracts  from  Swinburne  are  followed 
immediately  by  Et  tu,  Brute,  and  there  is  nothing  more  digm  d, 

almost  pathetic,  in  the  volume  .  y>  ? 

“  .  Cannot  the  man  who  wrote  Aialanta,  and  t  e  a  a 

Beautiful-can  he  not  be  content  to  spend  his  life  with  his  work,  w  ic 
should  be  his  love,  and  has  for  him  no  misleading  doubt  and  darkness 
that  he  should  so  stray  about  blindly  m  his  brother  s  flower  beds 

h™"  Who 'are  you  deserting  your  Muse,  that  you  should  insult  my 
Goddess  with  familiarity,  and  the  manners  of  approach  common  to 

, he  reasoners  in  the  market-place.  Hearken  to  me,’  you  cry,  and 

I  will  point  out  how  this  man,  who  has  passed  his  life  in  her  worship, 
is  a  tumbler  and  a  clown  of  the  booths,  how  he  who  has,  produce 
that  which  I  fain  must  acknowledge,  is  a  jester  m  the  ring  . 

“  Do  we  not  speak  the  same  language;  ?  Are  we  strangers,  then, 
or  in  our  Father’s  house  are  there  so  many  mansions  that  you  lose 
your  way,  my  brother,  and  cannot  recognise  your  km  ?  .  . 

“  You  have  been  misled,  you  have  mistaken  the  pale  demeanour 

1888]  2+7 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

and  joined  hands  for  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of  an  inward  and 
pmtual  earnestness.  For  you,  these  are  the  sfrious  one"  and  for 

For  ml°' X  sh  7d  U  matter'  Thdr  ioke  is  their  worL 

traledvl '  U!<!  the  ^  W  of  this  grotesque 

°  dy  dnd>  Wlth  Jhem  now,  you  are  all  my  joke  !  ”  4 

w.  n  w  V7nbur,ne’ m  Pltlful  we  have  been  told,  burned  Whistler’s 

him' "’A;  r*Mf  Wtfn'  ^  ^ 

\  “te"’  Mr'  Watts-Dunton  »  said  to  have  stated  that  Whistler 
asbed  Swinburne  to  write  the  article,  and  also  that  he  tried  to  mate 
peace  between  them. 


TmPS?iXIX:  ™E  BRITISH  ARTISTS 

the  years  eighteen 
EIGHTY-SIX. 


EIGHTY-FOUR 


THE  RISE. 
TO  EIGHTEEN 


Years  late  h  b *’■  fa*’"1  J°ined  the  Societ>'  of  British  Artists. 
"Ad  1  K  r  ,h“  3  m,Sh  Art,St  was  dini"*  with  us>  Whistler  name  in. 

having  Sue  .r,"'?  Said’  '0Wards  midni«ht’  ,he  Bridsh  Artist 
having  gone  but  what  was  it  for  the  British  Artist  sitting  there,  face 

dizz  sr:  sr  ” And  then’ he  *ow  -  ^ 

tto  theeTet  1  r-Cha.r“ingIy’  0f  C0urs<!-»d  ‘V  represented  to  me 
as  old  ru  a  v4rtlsts  WaS  m  oId  and  dlstlnghished  Society,  possibly 
if  I  would  d  u  7  T  maybC  °Ider>  3nd  the^  had  to  ask  me 

LL  I  b  Id  1  T  h?n°Ur  °f  beC°minB  3  memb"-  It  «us  only 

right  I  should  know  that  the  Society’s  fortunes  were  at  a  low  ebb,  but 

hey  wished  to  put  new  life  into  it.  I  felt  the  ceremony  of  the  occasion. 

ever  the  Society  was  at  the  moment,  it  had  a  past,  and  they  were 
here  with  all  official  authority  to  pay  me  a  compliment.  I  accepted 
the  offer  with  appropriate  courtesy.  As  always,  X  understood  the  cere¬ 
monial  of  the  occasion  and  then,  almost  as  soon  as  I  was  made  a  member 
1  was  elected  President.” 

In  the  summer  of  .906  Sir  Alfred  East,  President  of  the  British 
,  and  the  Council,  with  the  courtesy  Whistler  would  have 
243  [1884 


( See  page  197) 


THE  BRIDGE 
etching.  G.  204 

By  permission  of  Messrs.  Dowdeswell 


The  British  Artists 

approved,  gave  us  permission  to  consult  the  minute-books.  The  first 
mention  of  Whistler  is  in  the  minutes  of  the  half-yearly  general  meeting, 
November  21,  1884,  held  at  the  Suffolk  Street  Galleries,  when  it  was 
proposed  “  that  Mr.  Whistler  be  invited  to  join  the  Society  as  a  member. 

A  discussion  took  place  concerning  the  law  of  electing  Mr.  Whistler 
by  ballot,  when  it  was  proposed  by  Mr.  Bayliss,  seconded  by  Mr. 
Cauty,  that  the  law  relating  to  the  election  of  members  be  suspended.” 
This  was  carried,  and  the  Times  (December  3,  1884)  said  :  “  Artistic 
society  was  startled  by  the  news  that  this  most  wayward,  most 
un-English  of  painters  had  found  a  home  among  the  men  of  Suffolk 

Street,  of  all  people  in  the  world.” 

Whistler  had  never  belonged  to  any  society  in  England,  and  had 
never  been  asked,  though  we  believe  he  was  a  Freemason  ;  at  any  rate 
he  had  a  pair  of  sleeve  buttons  with  masonic  emblems  apparently— 
on  them.  He  was  fifty,  an  age  when  most  men  have  arrived 
officially,  if  they  “  arrive  ”  at  all.  Up  to  this  moment  he  had  stood 
apart  from  every  school  and  group  and  movement  in  the  country.  He 
was  as  much  a  foreigner  as  when  he  came,  a  quarter  of  a  century  before, 
from  Paris.  He  was  a  puzzle  to  the  people,  more  American  than 
English  in  appearance,  manners  and  standards.  His  short,  slight 
figure,  dark  colouring  and  abundant  curls,  his  vivacity  of  gesture,  his 
American  accent,  his  gaiety,  his  sense  of  honour,  his  quick  resentment 
of  an  insult,  were  foreign  and,  therefore,  to  be  suspected,  and  his  per¬ 
sonality  increased  the  suspicion  with  which  his  art  was  regarded.  Recent 
writers  have  analysed  his  work  and  pointed  out  where  it  is  American, 
French,  Japanese.  But  to  his  contemporaries  it  did  not  matter  what 
these  tendencies  were,  the  result  was  not  English.  His  art,  in  its  aims 
and  methods,  was  different  from  theirs,  to  them  he  seemed  in  deliberate 
opposition,  ruled  by  caprice,  straining  after  novelty  and  notoriety. 

When  Whistler  came  to  England,  art  was  the  Academy,  an  Academy 
that  had  strangled  the  traditions  of  art  and  set  up  sentiment  and 
anecdote.  Wilkie  explained  the  ideal  of  the  nineteenth-century 
Academician  when  he  said  that  “  to  know  the  taste  of  the  public  to 
learn  what  will  best  please  the  employer — is,  to  an  artist,  the  most 
valuable  of  all  knowledge  ” ;  and  the  Royal  Academy  has  only  carried 
on  the  canny  tradition.  The  classic  machines  of  Leighton,  Fadema, 
and  Poynter  appealed  to  the  artless  scholar  ;  the  idyls  of  Millais,  Marcus 
1884]  249 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Stone,  and  Leslie  to  the  artless  sentimentalist.  Watts  preached  sermons 
for  the  artless  serious,  Stacy  Marks  raised  a  laugh  in  the  artless  humorist, 
Herbert  and  Long  edified  the  artless  pious.  Every  taste  was  catered 
°.  Everybody  could  understand,  and  art  had  never  been  so  popular 
m  England.  The  Academy  became  a  social  power.  As  art  was  the 
last  thing  looked  for  on  the  walls,  so  the  artist  was  the  last  thing  looked 
or  m  the  Academician.  The  situation  is  summed  up  in  Whistler’s 
reply  to  a  group  of  ladies  who  were  praising  Leighton  : 

He  is  such  a  wonderful  musician  !  such  a  gallant  colonel !  such 
a  brilliant  orator  !  such  a  dignified  President  !  such  a  charming  host  ' 
such  an  amazing  linguist  !  ”  they  chorused.  “  H’m,  paints,  too,  don’t 
he,  among  his  other  accomplishments  ?  ”  said  Whistler. 

It  was  an  extraordinary  state  of  affairs.  “  Art,”  was  little  more 
than  an  excuse  for  intrigues  and  trivialities.  Men  thought  daring  in 
rebellion  and  leaders  of  secessions  did  not  improve  matters.  The 
Pre-Haphadites  were  absorbed  in  subject,  though  it  was  of  another 
Kind,  and  though  they  paid  greater  attention  to  technique  and  preached, 
as  reformers  always  have,  a  return  to  Nature.  Their  insistence  upon 
detail  and  finish,  instead  of  opening  their  eyes,  closed  them  more  hope- 
ess  y  y  making  it  a  duty  to  see  nothing  save  unimportant  facts,  and  to 
copy  these  like  a  machine.  The  exception,  Alfred  Stevens,  who  neither 
stooped  to  the  taste  of  public  or  patron,  nor  confused  the  artist  with 
the  missionary,  was  as  complete  a  pariah  as  Whistler,  and  he  died 
unknown  and  unrecognised. 

The  position  in  France  was  different.  French  officialism  respected 
tradition.  The  art  of  the  academic  painters  might  be  frigid,  conven¬ 
tional,  dull,  but  it  was  never  petty  and  trivial,  never  strove  to  please 
by  escape  from  drawing  and  colour.  Gleyre,  Ary  Scheffer,  Couture 
were  the  masters  Whistler  found  in  Paris.  Their  successors— Gerome, 
Jean-Paul  Laurens,  Bouguereau,  Bonnat— did  not  altogether  throw 
their  dignity  as  artists  to  the  winds  of  popularity,  or  sacrifice  it  to 
social  ambition.  The  rebels  in  France  were  not  actuated  by  moral 
or  literary  motives,  but  broke  away  from  conservatism.  Rebellion  sent 
Holman  Hunt  to  Palestine,  Rossetti  to  medievalism,  Burne-Jones  to 
legend  ;  it  kept  Courbet  at  home,  for  the  true  was  the  beautiful  and 
tiuth  was  to  be  found  in  the  life  and  the  people  about  him.  Moreover, 
the  painter  was  to  see  these  things  through,  not  a  microscope  but  his 
2  5°  [1884 


The  British  Artists 

eyes.  No  man  who  looks  upon  a  broad  landscape  can  count  the  blades 
of  grass  in  a  field,  or  the  leaves  of  ivy  on  a  wall,  or  the  stars  m  the  heavens ; 
the  eye  can  take  in  only  the  whole,  enveloped  in  atmosphere,  bathed 
in  light,  shrouded  in  darkness,  all  things  keeping  their  places  m  their 
planes.  While  in  England  the  artist  was  searching  the  Scriptures  an 
the  Encyclopaedia  for  subject,  in  France  he  was  training  his  eye  to  see 
things  as  they  are  and  his  hand  to  render  them.  This  preoccupation 
with  Nature,  and  the  study  of  tone,  gave  artists  new  pictorial  and 
technical  problems,  and  subject  counted  for  nothing  except  as  an  ai 
to  their  right  solution.  It  is  curious  to  contrast  the  work  of  the  men 
in  France  and  England  of  the  same  generation  as  Whistler,  bantm- 
Latour  grouped  his  friends  about  the  portrait  of  Delacroix,  Leighton 
rearranged  a  procession  of  early  Florentines  carrying  the  Madonna  of 
Cimabue  through  his  idea  of  the  streets.  Manet  noted  the  play  of  light 
and  colour  in  the  bull-rings  of  Spain,  Tadema  rebuilt  on  his  canvas  what 
he  thought  were  the  arenas  of  ancient  Rome.  Degas  chose  his  models 
among  the  washerwomen  and  ballet-girls  of  modern  Pans,  Rossetti 

borrowed  his  subjects  from  Dante.  . 

Whistler,  from  his  first  picture,  was  as  preoccupied  with  the  beauty 
in  the  “  familiar  ”  as  his  French  fellow  students.  What  might  have 
happened  had  he  remained  in  France,  it  is  idle  to  discuss.  Coming 
to  England  he  developed  in  his  own  way,  and  this  was.  a  way  with 
which  English  painters  had  no  sympathy.  He  was  so  isolated  that 
nothing  has  been  more  difficult  for  the  historian  of  modern  art  than  to 
place,  to  classify  him.  Some  authorities  have  included  him  among 
the  Realists.  His  work  eventually  differed  from  that,  of  Courbet  and 
Courbet’s  disciples,  but  he  was  always  as  much  a  realist  as  they  in  his 
preference  for  the  world  in  which  he  lived,  and  in  his  study  of  the 
relations  of  the  things  he  found  in  it.  He  never  wavered,  except  when 
he  painted  the  Japanese  pictures,  and  then  he  was  not  led  astray  by 
anecdote  or  sentiment,  but  by  the  beauty  that  had  drifted  from  japan 
into  his  house  and  studio.  London,  dirty,  gloomy,  despised  by  most 
artists,  with  its  little  shops  and  taverns  in  the  fog-bound  streets ;  the 
Thames,  with  its  ugly  warehouses  and  gaunt  factories  in  the  mist -laden 
night  ;  the  crinolines  of  the  sixties ;  the  clinging,  tight  draperies  of 
the  seventies,  became  beautiful  as  he  saw  them.  He  made  no  effort 
to  reform  Nature,  only  reserving  his  right  to  select  the  elements 

1884]  251 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

mmicWtoecrberlfUl  “d  C0Uld  be  br°Ught  togetber,  as  notes  in 
Tetl  O'clock^  H  “““T*  Pftmg  mt0  Practice  his  teaching  of  The 
p 1  b  /  f.*  He  S°Ught  sPlendour,  colour,  mass,  not  detail.  The 

to  tuHn  Wanned  t0  kaVe  °Ut  lGSS  than  a  camera,  he  warned 
on  historvTnr^t,  T  WitHn  biS  vision-  He  turned  his  back 
andtrm7  7  ^  ^  Ms  —  wlth  be^7  of  line 

of  them  ’  *  f  d  hC  /Ugg  ed  t0  perfect  his  technical  methods,  to  make 

ltbT  3  Pe5ject  medf  m  b7  which  to  express  this  beauty,  to  reconcile 

Pre  R  V°r  S,Vn  Nature  witb  what  his  brush  could  render.  The 
Pre-Raphaelite8  laboured  over  their  canvas,  inch  by  inch  ;  he  painted 

lost The  r  P1CtUIe  at  °nCVhat  Unit7  mlght  result*  Academicians 
Its  secretsWhe  m  lX7thyiimhS  5  he  Hngered  0n  the  ^er,  learning 
The  mnrT  **  tbe  movement,  tlle  pose  of  people  about  him. 

ern  exhibition  forced  most  painters  into  violent  colour  and 
exaggerated  action,  he  made  no  concession,  though  he  was  ready  to 
submit  his  pictures  to  the  same  tests  as  theirs  7 

of  MmVaanTr-abIe  "Tat  £  EnfSh  contemporaries  could  make  nothing 
of  him  and  his  work.  The  Academician  saw  but  emptiness  in  his 

paintings.  To  the  Pre-Raphaelites  they  were  slovenly  and  superficial 

ct  M  in  Ih"  "I  °f  ^  be  W  Wbere  ^  -d  Tt 
careful  m  the  avoidance  of  difficulties ;  Millais  thought  him  “  a  great 

p  wer  of  mischief  among  young  men,  a  man  who  had  never  learnfthe 
grammar  of  his  art.”  The  critics  took  their  cue  from  the  painters 
he  more  willingly  because  art  criticism  then  meant  analysis  of  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  a  picture  and  there  was  no  subject  in  Whistler’s  work  to  analyse. 

The  btr-°bjeCt:d  k°  SUbjeCt-  11  WaS  °nlp  the  blind  -itics  and 

L  stdl  aid"  tT  '  da7  Wh°  hG  did’  and  thek  Stupiditp 

Fran!  H  i  T  ^  f°r  Mm  were  V^ez’s  MeniHas, 

33  ,am  y*  mtoretto’s  Milky  Way:  the  greatest  subject- 
pic  ures  m  the  world.  All  he  objected  to  was  the  cheap  drivel  or 
sentiment  of  the  painter  whose  mind  or  whose  audience  never  rose 
a  ove  .  lummie  s  Darling  or  the  Mustard  Pot,  the  real  British  school, 
ampie  on  by  Hogarth,  which  he  has  made  for  ever  ridiculous.  The 
public,  following  their  leaders,  were  convinced  that  Whistler’s  work 
was  empty,  slight,  trivial,  an  insult  to  their  intelligence,  unless  they 
it  as  a  jest.  Nothing  explains  the  popular  conception  of  him 
etter  than  the  readiness  to  see  eccentricity  even  in  methods  which  he, 

252  [1884 


THE  BEGGARS 
ETCHING.  G.  194 

By  permission  of  the  Fine  Art  Society 


( See  page  198 ) 


The  British  Artists 

“  heir  to  all  the  ages,”  had  inherited.  His  long-handled  brushes  and 
his  manner  of  placing  sitter  and  canvas  were  eccentric,  though  they  had 
been  Gainsborough’s  a  century  before.  To  say  that  a  picture  was 
finished  from  the  beginning  was  no  less  eccentric,  though  it  was  Baude¬ 
laire’s  axiom  that  the  author  foresees  the  last  line  of  his  work  when  he 
writes  the  first.  It  is  easier  to  make  than  to  lose  the  reputation  for 
eccentricity,  fatal  to  success  in  a  land  of  conservatism.  Whistler  saw 
the  Englishmen  who  had  studied  in  Paris  with  him,  laden  with  honours  ; 
Poynter  a  prosperous  painter,  Leighton  a  perfect  President,  Du 
Maurier  the  popular  idol  of  Punch,  Armstrong  a  state  functionary  at 
South  Kensington,  while  he  remained,  officially,  on  the  outside,  at 
fifty  less  honoured  than  at  twenty-five,  because,  it  was  said,  that  he  had 
not  realised  the  promise  of  his  youth. 

In  one  respect  his  position  had  changed.  His  contemporaries  did 
not  alter  their  opinion,  but  younger  artists  accepted  him  and  his 
teaching  unquestioningly  for  a  time.  Though  doubted  and  mistrusted, 
he  had  never  been  without  influence.  To  look  over  old  reviews  and 
notices  of  exhibitions  is  to  find  references  to  the  effect  of  his  example. 
In  the  Art  Journal  (June  1887),  Sir  Walter  Armstrong  traced  the 
growing  influence  of  French  on  English  art  to  the  Paris  Universal 
Exhibition  of  1867  and  to  Whistler.  But  artists  of  the  new  generation 
went  further  than  the  admission  of  his  influence  ;  with  the  enthusiasm 
of  youth,  they  proclaimed  his  greatness.  He  was  their  master— the 
one  master  in  England.  After  his  return  from  Venice,  when  his 
fortunes  were  at  their  lowest  and  the  public  held  him  in  most  contempt, 
this  enthusiasm  began  to  make  itself  heard  and  felt  in  the  studios  and  the 
schools. 

The  British  Artists,  uncertain  of  their  future,  took  desperate 
remedies.  The  Society  was  old,  with  distinguished  chapters  in  its 
history.  It  wras  formed  by  one  of  the  first  groups  who  realised  the 
necessity  for  an  association  in  self-defence  against  the  monopoly  of 
the  Academy.  It  dated  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
With  the  old  Water  Colour  Society,  it  was  considered  only  second  in 
rank  to  the  Academy.  Its  gallery  was  in  Suffolk  Street,  near  enough 
to  the  Academy  to  profit  by  any  overflow  of  visitors,  until  the  Academy 
moved  from  Trafalgar  Square  to  Piccadilly.  The  old  Water  Colour 
Society  was  more  independent,  because  it  is  devoted  to  a  branch  of  art 
1884]  253 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

never  acknowledged  by  the  Academy,  though  every  Academician  tries 
to  sneak  in.  But  the  British  Artists  suffered  from  this  removal,  and 
found  a  formidable  rival  in  the  Grosvenor  Gallery.  In  Whistler,  with 
his  following,  they  seemed  to  see  the  man  to  drag  them  from  the  mire 
into  which  they  had  sunk.  The  older  members  hesitated— -afraid  of 
Whistler,  afraid  of  the  Academy,  afraid  of  themselves.  But  the  younger 
members  carried  the  day. 

Whistler  worked  hard  for  the  Society  from  his  election  till  his 
resignation.  He  attended  his  first  meeting  on  December  i,  1884,  and 
interested  himself  immediately  in  the  affairs  of  the  Society,  though, 
according  to  Mr.  Ludovici,  this  was  the  last  thing  the  Society  expected 
of  him.  Ho  promptly  invited  his  President  and  fellow  members  to 
breakfast  in  Tite  Street,  and,  as  promptly,  was  put  on  a  committee  fora 
smoking  concert,  a  dull  and  ponderous  function.  He  sent  to  the  Winter 
Exhibition  (1884-85)  two  pictures,  Arrangement  in  Black ,  No.  II.,  the 
portrait  of  Mrs.  Louis  Huth,  not  exhibited  in  London  since  1874,  and  a 
water-colour,  A  Little  Red  Note ,  Dordrecht ;  in  the  Summer  Exhibition 
(1885)  showed  the  Sarasate  for  the  first  time.  Mr.  Cole  wrote  in 
his  diary  : 

“  October  19 th  (1884).  M.  and  I  went  to  tea  with  Whistler  to  see 
his  fine  full-length  of  Sarasate,  the  violinist,  for  next  year’s  Academy.” 

But  whatever  his  original  intention  may  have  been,  the  Sarasate 
went  to  Suffolk  Street  with  several  small  Notes  and  Harmonies.  If, 
in  electing  him,  the  British  Artists  hoped  to  attract  attention  to  their 
exhibition,  they  were  not  disappointed.  “  The  eccentric  Mr.  Whistler 
has  gone  to  a  neglected  little  gallery,  the  British  Artists,  which  he  will 
probably  bring  into  fashion,”  Mr.  Claude  Phillips  wrote  in  the  Gazette 
des  Beaux- Arts  (July  1885),  and  this  is  what  happened.  The  distinc¬ 
tion  of  the  Sarasate  could  not  be  denied.  But  in  his  other  work  he 
was  pronounced  “vastly  amusing,”  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  seizing  this 
occasion  to  remind  him  of  “  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes’  virtuous 
determination  never  to  be  as  funny  as  he  could.  It  is  so  bad  for  the 
young.”  Soon  Whistler  proposed  that  Sunday  receptions  should  be 
given  in  the  gallery,  and  that  medals  should  be  awarded.  He  got 
Mr.  Menpes  in  as  a  water-colourist,  thus  establishing  distinct  sections 
in  the  Society,  a  scheme  he  carried  out  in  the  International  Society  of 
Sculptors,  Painters,  and  Gravers,  and  he  suggested  that  photographs  of 
254  [1885 


The  British  Artists 

pictures  shown  should  be  sold  in  the>llery,  an  idea  copied  all  oyer 
the  world.  For  the  Winter  Exhibition  of  1885-86  he  had  another  in¬ 
teresting  group,  including  the  Portrait  oj  Mrs.  Cassatt  and  the  Note  in 
Green  and  Violet ,  a  small  pastel  of  a  nude  which  created  the  most  unex¬ 
pected  sensation.  About  a  month  before  the  show  opened,  the  late 
t  Q  Horsley,  R.A.,  had  read,  during  a  Church  Congress,  a  paper  no 
one  would  have  given  a  thought  to  had  not  Whistler  immortalised  rt. 

Horsley  said :  .  .  ....  , 

“  If  those  who  talk  and  write  so  glibly  as  to  the  desirability  of 

artists  devoting  themselves  to  the  representation  of  the  naked  human 
form,  only  knew  a  tithe  of  the  degradation  enacted  before  the  model 
is  sufficiently  hardened  to  her  shameful  calling,  they  would  for  ever 
hold  their  tongues  and  pens  in  supporting  the  practice.  Is  not  clothed" 
ness  a  distinct  type  and  feature  of  our  Christian  faith  ?  All  art 
representations  of  nakedness  are  out  of  harmony  with  it. 

Whistler  answered  with  “  one  of  the  little  things  that  Providence 
sometimes  sent  him  ”  :  “  Horsley  soil  qui  mal  y  pense ,”  he  wrote  on  a 
label,  and  fastened  it  to  the  Note  in  Green  and  Violet.  The  British 
Artists  were  alarmed,  for  to  enter  Suffolk  Street  was  not  to  abandon 
hope  of  the  Academy.  The  label  was  removed,  not  before  it  had  been 
seen.  The  critic  of  the  Pall  Mall  referred  to  it  as  Whistler’s  “  indignant 
protest  against  the  idea  that  there  is  any  immorality  in  the  nude.” 
Whistler,  who  knew  when  ridicule  served  better  than  indignation, 
wrote  :  “  Art  certainly  requires  no  ‘  indignant  protest  ’  against,  the 
unseemliness  of  senility.  Horsley  soil  qui  mal  y  pense  is  meanwhile  a 
sweet  sentiment— why  more— and  why  '  morality  ’  ?  ”  But  the  critic 
could  not  understand,  and  he  was  discovered  one  day  “  walking  in  Pall 
Mall  with  the  nude  on  his  arm.” 

The  revenue  of  the  Society  had  been  rapidly  decreasing,  a  deficit  of 
five  hundred  pounds  had  to  be  faced.  To  meet  it  Whistler  proposed 
that  the  luncheon  to  the  Press  be  discontinued.  It  was  an  almost 
general  custom  then  to  feast  the  critics  at  press  views  of  picture  exhibi¬ 
tions.  But  in  few  was  the  cloth  more  lavishly  spread  than  at  the 
British  Artists’,  in  few  were  boxes  of  cigars  and  whiskies-and-sodas 
placed  so  conveniently.  The  younger  critics  resented  it,  the  old  ones 
lived  for  it.  Press  day,  the  dreariest  in  the  year  at  the  Royal  Academy, 
was  the  most  delightful  at  the  British  Artists ,  they  said.  Mr.  Sidney 

1886]  255 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Starr  tells  a  story  of  one,  when  Whistler  had  not  hung  his  picture,  but 
only  the  frame  : 

"  Telegrams  were  sent  imploring  the  placing  of  the  canvas.  But 
the  only  answer  that  came  was,  ‘  The  Press  have  ye  always  with  you, 
feed  my  lambs.’  A  smoking-concert  followed  during  the  exhibition. 
At  this,  one  critic  said  to  the  Master,  ‘  Your  picture  is  not  up  to  your 
mark,  it  is  not  good  this  time.’  ‘  You  should  not  say  it  isn’t  good  ; 
you  should  say  you  don’t  like  it,  and  then,  you  know,  you’re  perfectly 
safe  ;  now  come  and  have  something  you  do  like,  have  some  whisky,’ 
said  Whistler.” 

In  the  place  of  the  luncheon,  Whistler  suggested  a  Sunday  breakfast 
when  members  should  pay  for  themselves  and  their  guests.  But 
members  were  horrified ;  his  motion  was  lost. 

In  April  1886,  Mr.  William  Graham’s  collection  came  up  for  auction 
at  Christie’s.  The  sale  brought  to  it  the  buyers  and  admirers  of 
Rossetti,  Burne-Jones,  Holman  Hunt,  many  of  whose  pictures  Graham 
had  bought.  Whistler’s  Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Silver  ( Blue  and  Gold), 
Old  Battersea  Bridge  belonged  to  him.  When  it  appeared  “there  was 
a  slight  attempt  at  an  ironical  cheer,  which  being  mistaken  for  serious 
applause,  was  instantly  suppressed  by  an  angry  hiss  all  round,”  and  it 
was  sold  for  sixty  pounds  to  Mr.  R.  H.  C.  Harrison.  Whistler  acknow¬ 
ledged  through  the  Observer  (April  11,  1886),  “the  distinguished, 
though  I  fear  unconscious,  compliment  so  publicly  paid.”  Such 
recognition  rarely,  he  said,  came  to  the  painter  during  his  lifetime,  and 
to  his  friends  he  spoke  of  it  as  an  unheard-of  success,  the  first  time  such 
a  thing  had  happened.  The  hisses  in  their  ears,  the  British  Artists  were 
dismayed  by  his  one  contribution  to  the  Summer  Exhibition  of  1886. 
This  was  a  Harmony  in  Blue  and  Gold,  a  full-length  of  a  girl  in  draperies 
of  blue  and  green,  leaning  against  a  railing  and  holding  a  parasol,  an 
arrangement,  like  the  Six  Projects,  uniting  classic  design  with  Japanese 
detail.  The  draperies  were  transparent,  and  to  defy  Horsley  and  the 
British  Matron  was  no  part  of  the  British  Artists’  policy.  They  were 
doubtless  the  more  shocked  when  they  read  the  comments  in  the  Press. 
The  most  amusing  revelation  of  British  prudery,  worth  preserving  as 
typical,  appeared  in  the  Court  and  Society  Review  (June  24,  1886)  in 
a  letter,  signed  “  A  Country  Collector,”  protesting  against  the  praise 
of  Mr.  Malcolm  Salaman,  who  was  the  art  critic  of  that  paper  : 

256  [1886 


THE  RIALTO 

ETCHING,  G.  211 
By  permission  of  Messrs.  Dowdeswell 

(See  page  198) 


The  British  Artists 


“lam  invited  to  gaze  at  an  unfinished,  rubbishy  sketch  of  a  young 
woman,  who,  if  she  is  not  naked,  ought  to  be,  for  she  would  then  be 
more  decent.  .  .  .  The  figure  is  more  naked  than  nude  :  the  co  our, 
what  there  is  of  it,  is  distinctly  unpleasant.  For  my  part,  sir,  I  will 
not  believe  in  Mr.  Whistler  ;  my  daughters  have  commanded  me  to 
admire  him— I  will  not  admire  him.  How  they  can  quietly  stare  at  the 
ill-painted,  sooty-faced  young  woman  in  ‘  blue  and  gold  ’  passes  me. 
But  things  are  altered  now,  and  my  girls  gaze  with  critical  calmness 
and  carefully  balanced  'pince-nez.  on  that  which  would  have  sent  their 
grandmothers  shrieking  from  the  gallery.” 

And  Whistler,  he  declared,  was  a  “  poseur  ”  and  the  picture  “  a 
colossal  piece  of  pyramidal  impudence.” 

Whistler  was  not  represented  at  the  Grosvenor,  and  at  the  Salon 
only  by  the  Saras  ate,  which  went  afterwards  to  the  “  XX  ”  Club  in 
Brussels.  His  show  in  1886  was  at  Messrs.  Dowdeswell’s  Gallery. 
They  exhibited  and  published  for  him  the  Set  of  T wenty-Six  Etchings, 
twenty-one  of  the  plates  done  in  Venice,  the  other  five  in  England, 
the  price  fifty  guineas.  With  the  prints  he  issued  the  often-quoted 
Propositions,  the  first  series ;  the  laws,  as  he  defined  them,  of  etching. 
He  said  that  in  etching,  as  in  every  other  art,  the  space  covered  should 
be  in  proportion  to  the  means  used  for  covering  it,  and  that  the  delicacy 
of  the  needle  demands  the  smallness  of  the  plate  ;  that  the  “  Remarque,” 
then  in  vogue,  emanated  from  the  amateur  ;  that  there  should  be  no 
margin  to  receive  a  “  Remarque  ”  ;  and  that  the  habit  of  margin  also 
came  from  the  outsider.  For  a  few  years  these  Propositions  were 
accepted  by  artists.  At  the  present  time  they  are  ignored  or  defied, 
and  the  bigger  the  plate  the  better  pleased  is  the  etcher  and  his  public. 
Later  in  the  year,  in  May,  Messrs.  Dowdeswell  arranged  in  their  gallery 
a  second  series  of  Notes — Harmonies — Nocturnes.  A  few  were  in  oil, 
a  few  in  pencil,  but  the  larger  number  were  pastels  and  water-colours. 
They  were  studies  of  the  nude,  impressions  of  the  sea  at  Dieppe  and 
Dover,  St.  Ives  and  Trouville,  the  little  shops  of  London  and  Paris,  the 
skies  and  canals  of  Holland.  Whistler  decorated  the  room  in  Brown  and 
Gold,  choosing  the  brown  paper  for  the  walls,  designing  the  mouldings 
of  the  dado.  Mr.  Walter  Dowdeswell  has  the  sketch  of  the  scheme 
in  raw  umber,  yellow  ochre,  raw  sienna,  and  white  ;  he  has  also 
preserved  the  brown-and-yellow  hangings,  and  the  yellow  velarium. 
1886]  R  257 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

On  the  cover  for  the  mantelpiece,  the  Butterfly,  placed  to  one  side, 
is  without  a  sting.  “  Where  is  the  sting  ?  ”  Mr.  Dowdeswell  asked. 
“  That,”  Whistler  said,  “  is  in  my  waistcoat  pocket.  I  am  keeping 
it  for  the  critics.”  The  exhibition  was  received  with  mingled  praise 
and  blame,  and  it  would  not  have  been  a  success  financially  had  not 
Mr.  H.  S.  Theobald,  K.C.,  purchased  all  that  earlier  buyers  left  on 
Messrs.  Dowdeswell’s  hands. 

In  the  following  summer  Mr.  Burr  refused  to  stand  again  for  the 
Presidency,  and  at  a  General  Meeting  (June  I,  1886),  Whistler  was 
elected.  The  excitement  was  intense.  Whistler  alone  was  calm  and 
unmoved.  Mr.  Ingram,  a  scrutineer,  remembers  coming  for  Whistler’s 
vote  and  being  so  excited  that  Whistler  tried  to  reassure  him  :  “  Never 
mind,  never  mind,  you’ve  done  your  best  !  ”  The  meeting  adjourned 
to  the  Hogarth  Club  for  supper.  “  J’y  suis,  j’y  reste Whistler  wired 
his  brother.  The  comic  papers  were  full  of  caricatures,  the  serious 
papers  of  astonishment.  Pie  was  hailed  as  “  President  Whistler  ”  by 
his  friends,  and  denounced  by  members  of  the  Society  as  an  artist  with 
no  claim  to  be  called  British.  Younger  painters  rushed  to  his  support, 
and  one  French  critic,  Marcel  Roland,  prophesied  that,  “  V oeuvre  de 
Whistler  ne  quitter  a  son  atelier  que  pour  alter  tout  droit  s’ennuyer  a  jamais 
sur  les  murs  des  grandes  salles  du  Louvre.  La  place  est  marquee  entre 
Paul  Veronese  et  Velasquez It  was  suggested  by  Mr.  Malcolm 
Salaman  that  “  all  the  rising  young  painters  to  whom  we  must  look  for 
the  future  of  British  art  will  flock  to  the  standard  of  Mr. —why  not  Sir 
James— Whistler,  rather  than  to  that  of  Sir  Frederick  Leighton  ” — 
a  prophecy  fulfilled  in  the  early  days  of  the  International,  while  the 
question  as  to  whether  Whistler  would  have  accepted  a  knighthood 
has  lately  been  discussed.  He  would  doubtlessly,  could  he  have  done 
so  without  losing  his  American  citizenship,  but  he  would  not  have 
sold  his  citizenship  for  it.  Honorary  rank  and  British  orders  could  have 
been  conferred  upon  him,  as  they  are  often  upon  foreign  politicians, 
social  nonentities,  or  useful  financiers  withoutfloss  of  their  citizenship. 
But  in  British  orders,  as  Lord  Melbourne  said  of  the  Garter,  “  there 
is  no  damn  question  of  merit  about  it.” 

Whistler  intended  going  to  America  in  the  fall,  but  the  journey  was 
postponed.  He  wrote  to  the  World  (October  13,  1886),  “this  is  no 
time  for  hesitation— one  cannot  continually  disappoint  a  Continent,’ 
258  [1886 


The  British  Artists 

and  he  settled  down  to  the  task  of  directing  the  fortunes  of  a  Society 
which  looked  to  him  for  help,  its  members  divided  among  themselves 
in  their  confidence  in  him  as  President. 


CHAPTER  XXX  :  THE  BRITISH  ARTISTS.  THE  FALL.  THE 
YEARS  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-SIX  TO  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY- 
EIGHT. 

According  to  the  constitution  of  the  British  Artists  the  President, 
though  elected  in  June,  does  not  take  office  until  December.  Whistler 
presided  for  the  first  time  on  December  io,  1886,  and  from  that  day 
he  was  supported  devotedly  by  one  faction  and  opposed  fiercely  by  the 
other. 

For  the  Winter  Exhibition  (1886-87)  he  decorated  the  galleries  with 
the  same  care  as  his  own  shows.  He  put  up  a  velarium,  he  covered  the 
walls  with  muslin.  The  muslin  gave  out,  leaving  a  bare  space  under 
the  ceiling.  “  But  what  matter  ?  ”  he  said,  “  the  battens  are  well 
placed,  they  make  good  lines,”  and  they  became  part  of  the  decoration. 
He  would  allow  no  crowding,  the  walls  were  to  be  the  background  of 
good  pictures  well  spaced,  well  arranged.  He  urged  the  virtue  of 
rejection.  Mr.  Starr  says,  “  He  was  oblivious  to  every  interest  but 
the  quality  of  the  work  shown.”  He  told  Mr.  Menpes,  one  of  the 
Hanging  Committee,  “  If  you  are  uncertain  for  a  moment,  say  ‘  Out.’ 
We  want  clean  spaces  round  our  pictures.  We  want  them  to  be  seen. 
The  British  Artists’  must  cease  to  be  a  shop.” 

This  was  resented.  The  modern  exhibition  is  a  shop,  and  as  long 
as  most  painters  have  their  way  a  shop  it  will  remain.  He  exhibited 
Nocturne  in  Brown  and  Gold  (afterwards  Blue  and  Gold),  St.  Mark's, 
Venice — he  told  the  members  on  varnishing  day  that  it  was  his  best  ; 
Harmony  in  Red  :  Lamplight,  Mrs.  Godwin,  and  Harmony  in  White  and 
Ivory,  Lady  Colin  Campbell,  a  beautiful  portrait  of  a  beautiful  woman, 
one  of  many  that  have  disappeared.  It  was  not  finished  when  Whistler 
sent  it  in,  an  excuse  for  dissatisfied  members  to  propose  its  removal. 
The  question  was  not  put  to  the  meeting  when  the  matter  came  up, 
but  a  proposition  to  define  the  rights  of  the  President  and  the  President¬ 
elect  was  carried. 

1886] 


259 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

One  of  Whistler’s  first  acts  was  to  offer  to  loan  the  Society  five 
hundred  pounds  to  pay  its  debts.  Mr.  Starr  describes  him,  “  during 
this  time  of  fluctuating  finances,  pawning  his  large  gold  Salon  medal 
one  day,  lending  five  hundred  pounds  to  the  British  Artists  the  next. 
He  often  found  ‘  a  long  face  and  a  short  account  at  the  Bank,’  he  said 
one  day.” 

He  did  everything  he  could  to  increase  the  prestige  of  the  Society. 
All  that  was  charming  was  to  be  encouraged,  all  that  was  tedious  was 
to  be  done  away  with.  He  got  distinguished  artists  to  join  :  Charles 
Keene,  Alfred  Stevens,  and  the  more  promising  younger  men.  He 
allowed  several  to  call  themselves  in  the  catalogue  “  pupils  of  Whistler,” 
and  to  make  drawings  of  the  gallery  and  his  pictures  for  the  illustrated 
papers.  The  sketches  of  Sarasate  in  the  Pall  Mali’s  Pictures  of  1885, 
and  of  Harmony  in  Blue  and  Gold,  and  his  exhibition  at  DowdeswelPs 
gallery  in  Pictures  of  1886  are  by  him.  But  after  this  Mr.  Theodore 
Roussel,  Mr.  Walter  Sickert,  Mr.  Sidney  Starr  made  the  drawings  for 
reproduction.  He  gave  the  Art  Union,  organised  by  the  Society,  a 
plate,  The  Fish  Shop-Busy  Chelsea,  one  year,  and  another,  a  painting 
done  at  St.  Ives.  In  the  March  meeting  (1887)  he  proposed  a  limit  of 
size  for  exhibits,  he  contributed  twenty  pounds  towards  a  scheme  of 
decoration,  and  he  presented  four  velvet  curtains  for  the  doorways  in 
the  large  room.  There  is  a  drawing,  showing  curtains  and  velarium, 
by  Mr.  Roussel  in  the  Pall  Malls  Pictures  of  1887.  Whistler’s  early 
Nocturne  in  Blue  and  Gold,  Valparaiso  Bay  ;  Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold, 
T he  Gardens  (Cremorne)  ;  Harmony  in  Grey,  Chelsea  in  Ice,  were  hung, 
and  with  them  his  latest,  Arrangement  in  Violet  and  Pink,  Portrait  of 
Mrs.  Walter  Sickert. 

Most  of  the  members  regarded  the  President’s  innovations  as  an 
interference  with  their  rights.  He  might  pay  their  debts,  that  was  one 
thing  ;  it  was  another  to  make  their  gallery  beautiful  by  chucking  their 
pictures.  Their  resentment  increased  on  the  occasion  of  a  visit  from 
the  Prince  of  Wales.  Whistler  stayed  late  the  day  before  to  finish  the 
decoration.  When  the  members  came,  doors  and  dadoes  were  painted 
yellow.  Whistler,  with  whom  great  fault  was  found,  refused  to  have 
anything  further  to  do  with  the  decorations,  though  they  were  unfinished. 
There  was  fright  carried  that  evening  to  a  smoking-concert  at  the 
Hogarth  Club,  where  everybody  was  talking  of  the  arrangement  in 
260  [1887 


o 

o 

<N 


WATER-COLOUR 

In  the  possession  of  E.  B.  MacGeorge,  Esq. 


The  British  Artists 

yellow.  He  was  telegraphed  for.  “  So  discreet  of  you  all  at  the 
Hogarth  ”  was  his  answer,  and  he  did  not  appear  until  it  was  time 
to  meet  the  Prince,  though  in  the  meanwhile  members  tried  to  tone 
down  the  yellow.  Whistler  told  us  : 

“  I  went  downstairs  to  meet  the  Prince.  As  we  were  walking  up, 
I  a  little  in  front  with  the  Princess,  the  Prince,  who  always  liked  to  be 
well  informed  in  these  matters,  asked  what  the  Society  was— Was  it 
an  old  institution  ?  What  was  its  history  ?  Sir,  it  has  none,  its 
history  dates  from  to-day  !  ’  I  said.” 

But  the  old  members  say  that  when  the  Prince  went  downstairs 
with  one  of  them  his  remark  was  :  “  Who  is  that  funny  little  man  we 
have  been  talking  to  ?  ” 

The  dissatisfaction  was  brought  before  a  meeting,  when  a  proposition 
was  made  and  passed  “  that  the  experiment  of  hanging  pictures  in  an 
isolated  manner  be  discontinued,”  and  that,  in  future,  enough  works 
be  accepted  to  cover  the  vacant  space  above  and  below  the  line— in  fact, 
that  the  gallery  be  hung  as  before.  It  is  said  that  some  members  made 
an  estimate  of  the  amount  of  wall-space  left  bare,  and  calculated  the 
loss  in  pounds,  shillings  and  pence. 

We  saw  this  exhibition,  though  we  did  not  see  Whistler.  We 
remember  the  quiet,  well-spaced  walls,  and  the  portrait  of  Mrs.  Sickert, 
also  works  by  Dannat  and  William  Stott.  It  should  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  British  Artists5  was  arranged  and  hung  by  Whistler  years  before 
there  was  any  idea  of  artistic  hanging  in  German  Secessions— we  believe, 
before  there  were  any  Secessions.  Whistler  had  applied  to  his  own 
shows  the  same  method  of  spacing  and  hanging,  and  decorating  the 
walls  with  an  appropriate  colour -scheme.  It  had  occurred  to  no  one 
before  him  that  beautiful  things  should  be  shown  beautifully,  and  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  the  attention  given  to-day  to  the  artistic 
arrangement  of  picture  exhibitions  is  due  entirely  to  Whistler.  The 
resurrection  of  the  velarium,  designed,  made,  and  hung  after  his  scheme, 
has  revolutionised  the  lighting  of  picture  galleries,  though  in  very  few 
s  his  scheme  intelligently  followed. 

1887  was  Queen  Victoria’s  jubilee,  and  every  society  of  artists 
prepared  addresses  to  Her  Majesty;  Whistler  could  not  permit  his 
Society  to  appear  less  ceremoniously  loyal.  His  account  to  us  was  : 

“  Well,  you  know,  I  found  that  the  Academy  and  the  Institute  and 
1887]  261 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

the  rest  of  them  were  preparing  addresses  to  the  Queen,  and  so  I  went 
to  work  too,  and  I  prepared  a  most  wonderful  address.  Instead  of 
the  illuminated  performances  for  such  occasions,  I  took  a  dozen  folio 
sheets  of  my  old  Dutch  paper.  I  had  them  bound  by  Zaehnsdorf. 
First  came  the  beautiful  binding  in  yellow  morocco  and  the  inscription 
to  Her  Majesty,  every  word  just  in  the  right  place — most  wonderful. 
You  opened  it,  and  on  the  first  page  you  found  a  beautiful  little  drawing 
of  the  royal  arms  that  I  made  myself ;  the  second  page,  an  etching  of 
Windsor,  as  though  ‘  there’s  where  you  live  !  ’  On  the  third  page  the 
address  began.  I  made  decorations  all  round  the  text  in  water-colour, 
at  the  top  the  towers  of  Windsor,  down  one  side  a  great  battleship 
plunging  through  the  waves,  and  below,  the  sun  that  never  sets  on  the 
British  Empire — What  ?  The  following  pages  were  not  decorated, 
just  the  most  wonderful  address,  explaining  the  age  and  dignity  of  the 
Society,  its  devotion  to  Her  Glorious,  Gracious  Majesty,  and  suggesting 
the  honour  it  would  be  if  this  could  be  recognised  by  a  title  that  would 
show  the  Society  to  belong  specially  to  Her.  Then,  the  last  page  ;  you 
turned,  and  there  was  a  little  etching  of  my  house  at  Chelsea— And 
now,  here’s  where  I  live  !  ’  And  then  you  closed  it,  and  at  the  back 
of  the  cover  was  the  Butterfly.  This  was  all  done  and  well  on  its  way 
and  not  a  word  was  said  to  the  Society,  when  the  Committe  wrote  and 
asked  me  if  I  would  come  to  a  meeting  as  they  wished  to  consult  me. 
It  was  about  an  address  to  Her  Majesty — all  the  other  Societies  were 
sending  them — and  they  thought  they  should  too.  I  asked  what  they 
proposed  spending — they  were  aghast  when  I  suggested  that  the  guinea 
they  mentioned  might  not  meet  a  twentieth  of  the  cost.  But,  all  the 
time,  my  beautiful  address  was  on  its  way  to  Windsor,  and  finally  came 
the  Queen’s  acknowledgment  and  command  that  the  Society  should 
be  called  Royal — I  carried  this  to  a  meeting  and  it  was  stormy.  One 
member  got  up  and  protested  against  one  thing  and  another,  and 
declared  his  intention  of  resigning.  ‘  You  had  better  make  a  note  of 
it,  Mr.  Secretary,’  I  said.  And  then  I  got  up  with  great  solemnity, 
and  I  announced  the  honour  conferred  upon  them  by  Her  Gracious 
Majesty,  and  they  jumped  up  and  they  rushed  towards  me  with  out¬ 
stretched  hands.  But  I  waved  them  all  off,  and  I  continued  with  the 
ceremonial  to  which  they  objected.  For  the  ceremonial  was  one  of 
their  grievances.  They  were  accustomed  to  meet  in  shirt-sleeves — 
262  [is sr 


The  British  Artists 

free-and-easy  fashion  which  I  would  not  stand.  Nor  would  I  consent 
to  what  was  the  rule  and  tradition  of  the  Society.  I  would  not,  when 
I  spoke,  step  down  from  the  chair  and  stand  up  in  the  body  of  the 
meeting,  but  I  remained  always  where  I  was.  But,  the  meeting  over, 
then  I  sent  for  champagne.” 

Whistler,  as  President  of  the  British  Artists,  was  invited  to  the 
Jubilee  ceremonies  in  Westminster  Abbey,  and  in  Mr.  Lorimer  s  painting 
he  may  be  seen  on  one  side  of  the  triforium,  Leighton  on  the  other. 
Jubilee  in  the  Abbey,  an  etching,  gives  his  impressions.  He  was  asked 
also  to  the  state  garden-party  at  Buckingham  Palace,  and  to  the  Naval 
Review  off  Spithead,  when  he  made  the  Naval  Review  series  of  plates 
and  at  least  one  water-colour  in  a  day. 

The  year  before,  Mr.  Ayerst  Ingram  had  proposed  that  the  Society 
should  give  a  show  of  the  President’s  work  to  precede  then  Summer 
Exhibition  of  1887.  This  had  met  with  so  many  objections  that 
though  the  motion  was  not  withdrawn  as  Whistler  wanted,  it  was 
dropped.  After  the  new  honours  were  obtained  by  him  for  the  Society, 
and  while  he  was  travelling  in  Belgium  and  Holland,  an  effort  was  made 
to  revive  the  scheme.  Mr.  Ingram  did  what  he  could,  Mr.  Waltei 
Dowdeswell  acted  as  honorary  secretary,  guarantors  were  found,  owners 
of  pictures  were  written  to.  February  and  March  1888  was  the  time 
appointed,  but  Whistler  doubted  the  sincerity  of  the  Society  and  would 
not  risk  anything  less  than  an  “  absolute  triumph  of  perfection  for  an 
undertaking  made  in  the  name  of  the  British  Artists  or  his  own.  T.  o 
him  no  success  was  worse  than  failure.  At  the  end  of  September 
nothing  definite  had  been  arranged,  and  Whistler  told  Mr.  Ingram 
that  his  “  solitary  evidence  of  active  interest  could  hardly  bring  about 
a  result  sufficient  to  excuse  such  an  eleventh-hour  effort.” 

He  was  right.  The  opposition  in  the  Society  was  strong,  and  many 
members  were  in  open  warfare  with  their  President.  Ihey  refused 
to  support  him  in  his  proposition  that  no  member  of  the  Society  should 
be,  or  should  remain,  a  member  of  any  other  Society,  and  when  he  fol¬ 
lowed  this  with  the  proposition  that  no  member  of  the  Royal  Society  of 
British  Artists  who  was  a  member  of  any  other  Society  should  serve 
on  the  Selecting  or  Hanging  Committee,  they  again  defeated  him. 
Nor  did  they  persuade  him  to  reconsider  the  formal  withdrawal,  on 
November  18,  of  his  permission  to  show  his  works.  He  sent,  however, 
1887]  263 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

several  water-colours  and  the  twelve  etchings  of  the  Naval  Review  to 
the  Winter  Exhibition  (1887-88),  and  four  lithographs  from  the  Art 
Notes  published  that  autumn  by  the  Goupils.  They  were  described 
m  the  Magazine  of  Art  (December  1887)  as  mere  lead  pencil  “  notes 
reproduced  in  marvellous  facsimile  ”  which  gave  Whistler  his  chance 
for  a  courteous  reminder  in  the  World  to  “  the  bewildered  one.” 
The  critic  might  inquire,  he  said;  “the  safe  and  well-conducted 
one  informs  himself.”  Within  the  Society  he  had  once  more 
to  contend  against  the  opposition  to  his  hanging  and  spacing,  and 
a  fresh  grievance  was  that  space  was  filled  with  the  work  of  Monet 
as  yet  hardly  known  in  England.  One  of  the  older  members,  when  he 
looked  at  Whistler’s  Red  Note ,  declared,  “  If  he  can  do  that,  I’ll  forgive 
him— -he  can  do  anything.”  But  few  could  forgive  so  easily.  They 
objected  that  Whistler  would  have  his  way,  and  didn’t  mind  if  he 
made  enemies  in  getting  it,”  and  they  began  to  whisper  that  in  the 
matter  of  the  memorial  he  had  been  dictatorial.  The  situation  is  best 
described  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Holmes  to  us  :  “  With  a  little  more  of 
Disraeli  and  a  little  less  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  Whistler  would  have 
triumphed.” 

The  crisis  came  in  April  1888,  before  the  Summer  Exhibition.  It 
was  suggested  that  the  Council  communicate  with  the  President  as  to 
the  removal  of  temporary  decorations  which  he  had  designed  and  they 
had  paid  for.  One  decoration  the  Society  did  not  object  to  was  a 
velarium,  since  it  meant  no  loss  of  wall-space,  and  when  Whistler  removed 
this  they  ordered  a  new  one.  Whistler,  through  his  secretary,  explained 
to  the  Committee  that  the  velarium  was  his  patent— “a  patent  taken 
out  by  the  Greeks  and  Romans  ”  is  Mr.  Ingram’s  comment.  Whistler 
got  out  an  injunction ;  when  the  Committee,  with  their  order  for  the 
velarium,  hurried  to  Hampton’s,  his  secretary  was  at  their  heels  in  a 
hansom^  with  the  in 'unction  ;  the  secretary  arrived  with  them  at 
Liberty’s,  but  somehow  they  managed,  in  the  end,  to  evade  him.  A 
velarium  was  made  and  put  up,  and  they  proceeded  to  get  rid  of  their 
President.  At  a  meeting  on  May  7  a  letter,  signed  by  eight  members 
whose  names  do  not  appear  in  the  minutes,  was  read,  asking  President 
Whistler  to  call  a  meeting  to  request  Mr.  James  A.  McNeill  Whistler 
to  resign  his  membership  in  the  Society,  and  he  called  the  meeting  and 
signed  the  minutes.  The  President  made  a  speech,  in  which  he  claimed 

i64  [1888 


PORTRAITS  OF  MAUD 

OIL  (DESTROYED) 

From  photographs  lent  by  Pickford  R.  Waller.,  Esq. 


{See  page  204) 


The  British  Artists 


that  his  action  in  the  matter  of  the  velarium  was  not  inimical  to  the 
welfare  of  the  Society,  but  the  speech  was  not  recorded.  He  permitted 
no  one  to  speak  in  opposition,  and  the  subject  was  dropped.  At  the 
special  meeting  called  by  him  the  same  month  there  was  an  exhaustive 
discussion.  Whistler  declared  his  position.  His  opponents  presented 
an  array  of  lawyer’s  letters,  which  they  said  showed  that  Whistler  had 
threatened  injunctions,  had  greatly  impeded  the  Executive  in  the 
decoration  of  the  galleries,  and  had  influenced  many  distinguished 
people  to  keep  away  from  the  private  view.  A  vote  was  taken  for  his 
expulsion,  though  Mr.  Ingram  proposed  a  vote  of  censure  in  its  place. 
Whistler  refused  at  first  to  put  the  motion  to  expel  himself,  but  finally 
was  compelled  to  do  so.  There  were  eighteen  votes  for,  nineteen  against 
it,  and  nine  members  did  not  vote.  The  votes,  Whistler  said,  when  he 
addressed  the  meeting  after  the  ballot,  showed  that  the  Society  approved 
of  his  action.  Mr.  Francis  James  at  once  proposed  a  vote  of  censure  on 
those  who  had  signed  the  letter,  but  this  was  not  carried.  On  June  4, 
at  the  annual  election,  when  a  whip  had  been  sent  round  to  all  members, 
Wyke  Bayliss  was  elected  President,  and  Whistler  resigned  from  the 
Society,  congratulating  the  members  on  the  election  :  “  Now,  at  last, 
you  must  be  satisfied.  You  can  no  longer  say  you  have  the  right 
man  in  the  wrong  place  !  ” 

Mr.  Starr  recalls  his  saying  :  “  Now  I  understand  the  feelings  of 
all  those  who,  since  the  world  began,  have  tried  to  save  their  fellow 
men.” 

The  minority  resigned,  as  Mr.  Menpes,  foreseeing  the  inevitable, 
had  a  month  earlier,  which  led  to  Whistler’s  comment  on  “  the  early 
rat  who  leaves  the  sinking  ship.”  All  who  had  joined  the  Society  with 
him  left  it  with  him,  and  he  said  “  the  Artists  came  out  and  the  British 
remained.” 

Mr.  Menpes  describes  a  supper  of  the  Artists  after  the  meeting, 
at  the  Hogarth  Club.  He  says  he  was  taken  back  into  favour,  and 
joined  the  party.  “  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  them  all  ?  ”  he 
asked.  “  Lose  them,”  said  Whistler.  But  he  did  not  lose  them  all. 
One  or  two  stayed  by  him  to  the  end. 

Whistler,  according  to  the  constitution,  held  office  till  December, 
and  till  December  he  retained  his  post.  During  this  time  there  were 
meetings.  At  one  he  addressed  Bayliss  as  Baily — to  his  disgust — 
1888]  265 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

but,  on  this  occasion  at  least,  Bayliss  had  an  idea  and  replied,  “Yes, 
Mr.  Whistle  !  ”  At  a  meeting  on  November  28  Whistler  made  a 
statement  of  his  relations  with  the  Society,  and  his  objects  and  aims 
concerning  it,  only  referred  to  in  the  minutes,  and  he  gave  up  the  chair 
to  Wyke  Bayliss.  He  had  been  President  two  years,  a  member  four. 
After  November  28,  1888,  his  name  appears  in  the  official  records  only 
twice  :  first  on  January  4,  1889,  in  connection  with  a  dispute  over 
the  notice  board  outside  the  gallery,  and  then  on  July  20,  1903,  when 
Wyke  Bayliss  stated  “  that,  acting  on  the  feeling  that  it  would  be  the 
wish  of  the  Society,  he  had  ordered  a  wreath  to  be  sent  in  the  name 
of  the  Society  on  the  occasion  of  the  funeral  of  Mr.  Whistler.” 

The  newspapers  were  not  so  shy  of  the  President  as  the  minute- 
books.  The  difference  between  Whistler  and  the  Society  found  the 
publicity  which  he  could  never  escape.  He  said  to  the  men  who  resigned 
with  him,  “  Come  and  make  history  for  posterity,”  and,  as  usual,  he  saw 
that  the  record  was  accurate.  He  had  hardly  left  the  Society  when  the 
notice  board,  with  the  Butterfly  and  the  lion  which  he  had  painted, 
was  altered  ;  he  immediately  wrote  a  letter  to  state  the  fact  in  the 
Pall  Mall  Gazette,  Reporters  and  interviewers  gave  the  British 
Artists’  reasons  for  their  late  President’s  resignation  and  his  successor’s 
qualifications  for  the  post.  Whistler  lost  no  time  in  explaining  his 
position  and  giving  his  estimate  of  the  new  President.  It  cannot  be 
said  too  often  that  his  letters  to  the  Press,  criticised  as  trivial  and  un¬ 
dignified,  were  written  deliberately  that  “  history  might  be  made.” 
Many  pages  of  The  Gentle  Art  are  filled  with  his  relations  with  the 
British  Artists.  The  gaiety  of  his  letters  was  mistaken  for  flippancy, 
because  the  more  solemn  and  ponderous  the  “  enemies  ”  became,  the 
more  “  joyous  ”  he  grew  in  disposing  of  them,  tie  did  not  spare  the 
British  Artists.  The  Pall  Mall  undertook  to  describe  the  disaster  of 
the  “  Whistlerian  policy  ”  in  Suffolk  Street  by  statistics  and  to  extol  the 
strength  of  Wyke  Bayliss : 

“The  sales  of  the  Society  during  the  year  1881  were  under  five 
thousand  pounds ;  1882,  under  six  thousand ;  1883,  under  seven 

thousand;  1884,  under  eight  thousand;  1885  (the  first  year  of  Mr. 
Whistler’s  rule),  they  fell  to  under  four  thousand  ;  1885,  under  three 
thousand;  1887,  tinder  two  thousand;  and  the  present  year,  1888, 
under  one  thousand.  .  .  .  The  new  President  .  .  .  is  .  .  .  the  hero 
2 66  [1888 


The  British  Artists 

of  three  Bond  Street  ‘  one-man  exhibitions,’  a  board-school  chairman,  a 
lecturer,  champion  chess-player  of  Surrey,  a  member  of  the  Rochester 
Diocesan  Council,  a  Shakespearean  student,  a  bellow  of  the  Society  o 
Cyclists,  a  Fellow  of  the  Society  of  Antiquarians,  and  public  orator 

of  Noviomagus.”  _  .  .  , 

Whistler’s  answer,  serious  in  intention,  gay  in  wording,  pomte 
out  “  the,  for  once,  not  unamusing  ‘  fact  ’  that  the  disastrous  and  simple 
Painter  Whistler  only  took  in  hand  the  reins  of  government  at  least 
a  year  after  the  former  driver  had  been  pitched  from  his  box  and  half 
the  money-bags  had  been  already  lost  !  From  eight  thousand  to  four 
thousand  at  one  fatal  swoop  !  and  the  beginning  of  the  end  had  set 
in  !  .  •  •  ‘  Four  thousand  pounds  !  ’  down  it  went  ;  three  thousand 

pounds,  two  thousand  pounds-the  figures  are  Wyke’s-and  this 
season,  the  ignominious  ‘  one  thousand  pounds  or  under  ’  is  none  of  my 
booking  !  And  when  last  I  saw  the  mad  machine  it  was  still  cycling 

down  the  hill.”  _  .  u 

Whistler  was  disappointed,  though  he  did  not  show  it.  He  was 
seldom  invited  to  join  anything,  nor  did  he  rush  to  accept  the  rare 
invitation.  He  would  take  no  part  in  the  Art  Congress  started  in  the 
eighties,  despite  an  effort  to  entangle  him  ;  he  would  do  no  more  than 
“  bestow  his  benison  ”  upon  the  movement  in  1886  to  organise  a  National 
Art  Exhibition,  led  by  Walter  Crane,  Holman  Hunt,  and  George 
Clausen.  But  to  the  British  Artists  he  had  given  his  time  and  energy 
during  four  years,  he  had  dragged  the  Society  out  of  the  slough  in 
which  it  was  floundering  and  made  its  exhibitions  the  most  distinguished 
and  most  talked-about  in  London.  Wyke  Bayliss,  who  never  under¬ 
stood  him,  wrote  :  “  Whistler’s  purpose  was  to  make  the  British  Artists 
a  small,  esoteric  set ;  mine  was  to  make  it  a  great  guild  of  the  working 
artists  of  this  country.” 

Whistler  said :  “  I  wanted  to  make  the  British  Artists  an  art  centre , 
they  wanted  to  remain  a  shop.” 

Wyke  Bayliss  and  his  successor  were  knighted,  as  Presidents  of  Royal 
Societies  usually  are  ;  Whistler,  who  obtained  the  title  and  charter 
of  the  Society,  was  ignored. 

Ten  years  later,  as  President  of  the  International  Society  of  Sculptors, 
Painters,  and  Gravers,  he  not  only  recommended,  but  carried  out  his 
schemes  and  theories  :  the  decoration  of  the  galleries,  the  refusal  of 
1888]  267 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

bad  work  no  matter  who  sent  it,  the  proper  hanging  of  the  pictures 
accepted,  the  making  of  the  exhibitions  into  artistic  events,  the  inter¬ 
esting  of  the  public  in  them,  the  insistence  that  each  artist  should  only- 
support  his  own  Society’s  exhibitions  and  should  belong  to  no  other 
Society.  He  was  dictatorial,  but  without  a  dictator  nothing  can  be 
done,  and  at  the  British  Artists  each  British  Artist  wanted  to  lead. 
His  Presidency  began  in  mistrust  and  ended  in  discord.  For  Whistler 
it  had  an  advantage,  especially  abroad,  where  artists  began  to  regard 
him  with  deference. 


CHAPTER  XXXI:  MARRIAGE.  THE  YEAR  EIGHTEEN 
EIGHTY-EIGPIT. 

“  I  don’t  marry,”  Whistler  said,  “  though  I  tolerate  those  who  do.” 
But  before  he  left  the  British  Artists’  he  did  marry.  His  wife 
was  Beatrix  Godwin,  widow  of  E.  W.  Godwin,  the  architect 
of  the  White  House  and  for  years  Whistler’s  champion  in  the  Press. 
Godwin  died  on  October  6,  1886,  and  Whistler  married  on  August  II, 
1888. 

Mrs.  Whistler  was  the  daughter  of  John  Birnie  Philip,  remembered 
as  one  of  the  sculptors  who  worked  on  the  awful  Albert  Memorial. 
She  was  large,  so  that  Whistler  was  dwarfed  beside  her,  dark  and  hand¬ 
some,  more  foreign  in  appearance,  but  not  in  person,  than  English. 
Whistler  delighted  in  a  tradition  that  there  was  gipsy  blood  in  her 
family.  She  had  studied  art  in  Paris  and  with  him,  and  he  was  proud 
of  her  as  a  pupil.  Her  work  included  several  decorative  designs,  and 
a  series  of  etchings  made  to  illustrate  the  English  edition  of  Van  Eeden’s 
Little  Johannes.  Only  a  few  of  the  plates  were  finished,  and  of  these 
some  proofs  were  shown  in  the  first  exhibition  of  the  International 
Society  and  in  the  Paris  Memorial  Exhibition,  while  Mr.  Heinemann 
had  the  intention  of  publishing  a  series  of  illustrations  which  she  and 
Whistler  drew  on  the  wood. 

Mr.  Labouchere  holds  himself  responsible  for  the  marriage,  and 
told  the  story  in  Truth  (July  23,  1903)  : 

“  I  believe  that  I  am  responsible  for  his  marriage  to  the  widow 
of  Mr.  Godwin,  the  architect.  She  was  a  remarkably  pretty  woman 

268  [1888 


PORTRAIT  OF  LADY  MEUX 
HARMONY  IN  PINIC  AND  GREY 

OIL 


In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  Lady  Meux 
{See  page  209) 


Marriage 

and  very  agreeable,  and  both  she  and  he  were  thorough  Bohemians. 

I  was  dining  with  them  and  some  others  one  evening  at  Earl’s  Court. 
They  were  obviously  greatly  attracted  to  each  other,  and  in  a  vague 
sort  of  way  they  thought  of  marrying.  So  I  took  the  matter  in  hand 
to  bring  things  to  a  practical  point.  ‘  Jemmy,’  I  said,  will  you  marry 
Mrs  Godwin  ?  ’  ‘  Certainly,’  he  replied.  ‘  Mrs.  Godwin,’  I  said, 

wm  you  marry  Jemmy?’  ‘Certainly,’  she  replied.  ‘When  ?  ’I 
asked  ‘  Oh,  some  day,’  said  Whistler.  ‘  That  won  t  do,  I  said, 

'  we  must  have  a  date.’  So  they  both  agreed  that  I  should  choose  the 
day,  what  church  to  come  to  for  the  ceremony,  provide  the  clergyman, 
and’  give  the  bride  away.  I  fixed  an  early  date,  and  got  the  then 
Chaplain  of  the  House  of  Commons  [the  Rev.  Mr.  Byng]  to  perform 
the  ceremony.  It  took  place  a  few  days  later.  ? 

“  After  the  ceremony  was  over,  we  adjourned  to  Whistler’s  studio, 
where  he  had  prepared  a  banquet.  The  banquet  was  on  the  table, 
but  there  were  no  chairs.  So  we  sat  on  packing-cases.  The  happy 
pair,  when  I  left,  had  not  quite  decided  whether  they  would  go  that 
evening  to  Paris  or  remain  in  the  studio.  How  unpractical  they  were 
was  shown  when  I  happened  to  meet  the  bride  the  day  before  the 

marriage  in  the  street  :  ,  T 

“  ‘  Don’t  forget  to-morrow,’  I  said.  ‘  No,’  she  replied,  1  am 
just  going  to  buy  my  trousseau.’  ‘  A  little  late  for  that,  is  it  not  ? 

I  asked.  ‘  No,’  she  answered,  ‘  for  I  am  only  going  to  buy  a  new  tooth- 
brush  and  a  new  sponge,  as  one  ought  to  have  new  ones  when  one 

marries.’  ”  , 

The  wedding  took  place  at  St.  Mary  Abbott’s,  Kensington,  m  the 

presence  of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Whistler,  one  of  Mrs.  Godwin’s  sisters, 
Mrs.  Whibley,  and  three  or  four  others.  Mr.  Labouchere  gave  the 
bride  away  and  Mr.  Jopling-Rowe  was  best  man.  Whistler  had  recent.y 
left  454  Fulham  Road  and  the  Vale,  with  its  memories  of  Maud,  for 
the  Tower  House,  Tite  Street,  and  the  suddenness  of  his  marriage 
gave  no  time  to  put  things  in  order.  There  were  not  only  packing- 
cases  in  the  dining-room— usually  one  of  the  first  rooms  furnished  m 
every  house  he  moved  into— but  the  household  was  in  most  respects 
unprepared  for  the  reception  of  a  bride.  The  wedding  breakfast 
was  ordered  from  the  Cafe  Royal,  and  the  bride’s  sister  hurriedly  got 
a  wedding  cake  from  Buszard’s. 

1888] 


269 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

The  rest  of  the  summer  and  autumn  was  spent  in  France,  part  of 
the  time  in  Boulogne.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cole,  on 

“  August  27  (1888).  Met  Jimmy  and  his  wife  on  the  sands:  they 
came  up  with  us  to  Rue  de  la  Paix,  down  to  bathe.  Jimmy  sketching 
on  sands ;  the  W.’s  turned  up  after  lunch.  With  Jimmy  to  the  iron 
and  rag  marcbe  near  Boulevard  Prince  Albert  [no  doubt  in  search  of 
old  paper  as  well  as  of  subjects].  He  sketched  (water-colours)  a  dingy 
shop.  Later  we  dined  with  them  at  the  Casino.  Pleasant  parti  a 
quatre.  Jimmy  in  excellent  form.  Leaving  to-morrow.” 

From  Boulogne  they  went  to  Touraine,  stopping  at  Chartres, 
most  of  the  time  lost  to  their  friends,  as  they  intended  to  be  lost.  It 
was  Whistler’s  first  holiday.  He  was  taking  it  lazily,  he  wrote  to  Mrs. 
William  Whistler,  in  straw  hat  and  white  shoes,  rejoicing  in  the  grapes 
and  melons,  getting  the  pleasure  out  of  it  that  France  always  gave  him. 
But  he  got  more  than  pleasure.  He  brought  back  to  London  about 
thirty  plates  of  Tours  and  Loches  and  Bourges,  and  settled  down  in 
London  to  wind  up  his  connection  with  the  British  Artists’. 

Whistler  was  devoted  to  his  wife,  who  henceforth  occupied  a  far 
more  prominent  position  in  his  life  than  could  have  been  imagined. 
Indeed,  his  life  was  entirely  changed  by  his  marriage.  He  went  less 
into  society  and  had  less  time  for  his  art.  During  months  he  was  a 
wanderer,  and  while  he  wandered  his  painting  stopped.  Not  that 
Mrs.  Whistler  was  indifferent  to  his  art.  She  was  sympathetic.  He 
liked  to  have  her  in  the  studio ;  when  she  could  not  come  he  brought 
the  pictures  he  was  painting  home  for  her  to  see.  He  consulted  her 
in  his  difficulties,  she  shared  his  troubles,  she  rejoiced  in  his  triumphs. 
But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  period  of  great  schemes  came  to  an 
end  with  his  marriage.  Although  later  he  painted  exquisite  pictures, 
there  are  no  canvases  like  the  Mother  and  Carlyle,  the  Sarasate  and  ‘The 
Yellow  Bushin.  This  was  no  doubt  the  result  partly  of  his  pleasure 
in  his  new  domestic  conditions,  partly  of  circumstances  that  prevented 
him  from  remaining  long  enough  in  one  place  for  continuous  work 
to  be  possible.  An  artist  must  give  himself  entirely  to  his  work,  or 
else  have  a  very  different  temperament  from  Whistler’s.  After  a 
year  or  so  in  London  and  two  or  three  happy  years  in  Paris  which  Mrs. 
Whistler  said  she  did  not  deserve,  her  health  necessitated  wanderin g 
again. 

270 


[1888 


Work 


Commissions  at  last  came,  but  Mrs.  Whistler’s  illness  left  him  no 
chance  to  carry  them  out.  He  said  to  us  one  day  :  “  Now,  they  want 
these  things ;  why  didn’t  they  want  them  twenty  years  ago,  when  I 
wanted  to  do  them,  and  could  have  done  them  ?  And  they  were  just 
as  good  twenty  years  ago  as  they  are  now.” 

Few  large  portraits  begun  during  these  years  were  completed. 
And  after  his  wife’s  death  he  struggled  in  vain  to  return  to  the  old 
conditions  of  continuous  effort  to  which  the  world  owes  his  greatest 
masterpieces.  It  is  true  that  his  work  never  deteriorated  till  the 
last,  that,  as  he  said,  he  brought  it  ever  nearer  to  the  perfection  which 
alone  could  satisfy  him.  He  never  produced  anything  finer  in  their 
way  than  The  Master  Smith  and  The  Little  Rose  of  Lyme  Regis,  painted 
toward  the  end  of  his  married  life,  or  the  series  of  children’s  heads  of 
his  latest  years.  But  these  were  planned  on  a  smaller  scale  and  required 
less  physical  effort  than  the  large  full-lengths  and  the  decorative  designs 
he  longed  to  execute,  but  was  never  able  to  finish,  sometimes  not  even 
to  begin.  Whistler,  with  advancing  years,  became  more  sure  of  himself, 
more  the  master,  but  circumstances  forced  him  to  find  his  pleasure 
and  exercise  his  knowledge  in  smaller  work. 


CHAPTER  XXXII  :  THE  WORK  OF  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN 
EIGHTY  TO  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-TWO. 

These  years  were  full,  for  though  few  large  paintings  were  completed, 
there  were  many  small  oils,  water-colours,  pastels,  etchings,  and 
lithographs.  Whistler,  going  and  coming  in  England  or  on  the 
Continent,  had  trunks  and  bags  with  compartments  for  his  colours, 
plates,  and  lithographic  materials.  It  is  impossible  to  say,  he  did  not 
know,  the  exact  number  of  small  works  he  produced  during  this 
period. 

He  had  used  water-colour  since  his  schooldays,  but,  until  he  went 
to  Venice,  not  to  any  extent.  Some  of  the  Venetian  drawings  show 
that  he  was  then  scarcely  master  of  it.  But  the  results  he  finally  got, 
both  in  figure  and  landscape,  were  admirable.  He  touched  perfection 
in  many  a  little  angry  sea  at  Dieppe,  or  note  in  Holland,  or  impression 
of  Paris.  As  not  many  are  dated  it  may  never  be  known  when  this 
1880-92]  271 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

mastery  was  reached.  He  probably  would  not  have  been  sure  of  the 
dates.  We  have  gone  through  drawers  of  the  cabinet  in  his  studio 
with  him,  when  he  expressed  the  utmost  surprise  on  finding  certain 
things  that  he  had  forgotten,  and  was  unable  to  say  when  they  were 
painted  or  drawn.  He  suffered  from  this  confusion  and  realised  the 
importance  of  making  a  complete  list  of  his  works,  with  their  dates, 
and  there  were  various  projects  and  commencements.  After  several 
attempts  he  found  it  took  too  much  time.  We  know  that  he  asked 
Mr.  Freer  to  trace  his  pictures  in  America  and  Mr.  D.  Croal  Thomson 
to  do  the  same  in  England.  Miss  Birnie  Philip  finally  swore  in  the 
Law  Courts  that  what  he  wanted  was  for  us  to  prepare  a  complete 
catalogue. 

Between  1880  and  1892  he  made  ninety  plates  in  England.  They 
begin  with  Regent’s  Quadrant.  Then  follow  little  shops  in  Chelsea, 
Gray's  Inn,  Westminster,  the  Wild  West  (Earl’s  Court),  Whitechapel, 
Sandwich,  the  Jubilee,  and  many  figure  subjects.  There  is  also  the 
Swan  and  Iris ,  the  copy  of  an  unfinished  picture  by  Cecil  Lawson, 
for  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse’s  Memoir  of  the  painter  (1883),  another  unsuc¬ 
cessful  attempt  at  reproduction.  It  was  the  only  plate,  since  those 
published  by  the  Junior  Etching  Club,  made  as  an  illustration. 
Billingsgate  was  issued  in  the  Portfolio  (1878)  and  Hamerton’s  Etching 
and  Etchers  (1880),  Alderney  Street  in  the  Gazette  des  Beaux- Arts 
(1881),  La  Marchande  de  Moutarde  in  English  Etchings  (1888),  but 
these  were  etched  with  no  idea  of  their  publication  in  magazine  or 
book. 

The  English  plates  are  simple  in  subject,  and  they  have  been 
therefore  dismissed  as  unimportant  by  unimportant  people.  But 
many  are  delightfully  composed  and  full  of  observation.  Whistler 
carrying  the  small  plates  about  with  him,  sketched  on  copper,  with 
the  knowledge  of  a  lifetime,  the  subjects  he  found  as  other  artists  sketch 
on  paper.  Three  etchings  were  made  at  the  Wild  West  probably 
in  an  afternoon  ;  one  at  Westminster  Abbey  during  the  Jubilee  Service 
of  1887  ;  and  ten  to  thirteen  of  the  Jubilee  Naval  Review  in  a  day — 
plates  that  prove  triumphantly  his  power  of  giving  his  impressions 
with  a  few  lines  of  his  etching-needle. 

In  the  autumn  of  1887  he  went  to  Belgium  with  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
William  Whistler,  stopping  at  Brussels.  Ostend,  and  Bruges.  In  Brussels 
272  t188? 


Work 

he  etched  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  the  Guildhalls,  the  little  shops  and  streets 
and  courts,  intending  to  issue  the  prints  as  a  set.  M.  Octave  Maus, 
who  knew  him,  says  “  he  was  enchanted  with  the  picturesque  and 
disreputable  quarter  of  les  Marolles  in  the  old  town.  He  was  frequently 
to  be  met  in  the  alleys  which  pour  a  squalid  populace  into  the  old 
High  Street,  engaged  in  scratching  on  the  copper  his  impressions  of 
the  swarming  life  around  him.  When  the  inquisitive  throng  pressed 
him  too  hard,  the  artist  merely  pointed  his  graver  at  the  arm,  or  neck, 
or  cheek  of  one  of  the  intruders.  The  threatening  weapon,  with  his 
sharp  spiteful  laugh,  put  them  at  once  to  flight.” 

Sometimes  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Whistler  found  him,  safe  out  of  the  way 
of  the  crowd,  in  the  bandstand  of  the  Grande  Place,  where  several 
of  the  plates  were  made.  These  are  another  development  in  technique. 
With  the  fewest,  the  most  delicate,  lines  he  expressed  the  most  com¬ 
plicated  and  the  most  picturesque  architecture.  The  plates  were 
probably  bitten  with  little  stopping-out,  and  they  are  printed  with  a 
sharpness  that  shows  their  wonderful  drawing.  M.  Duret  has 
said  to  us  that  in  them  Whistler  gives  “  les  os  de  V architecture  ” 
A  very  few  proofs  were  pulled.  The  set  was  never  issued. 

The  etchings  described  as  in  Touraine  are  those  done  on  his  wedding 
journey  and  at  other  times.  They  also  have  never  been  published  as  a  set. 
As  in  Belgium,  great  architecture  suggested  his  subjects,  and  his  treat¬ 
ment  shows  that  if,  as  a  rule,  he  refrained  from  rendering  architecture, 
it  was  from  no  desire  to  evade  difficulties,  as  ignorant  critics  suppose. 
The  line  is  more  vital  and  the  biting  more  powerful  than  in  the  Belgian 
plates. 

The  year  after  his  marriage  (1889)  he  etched  seventeen  plates  in  and 
around  Dordrecht  and  Amsterdam,  including  Nocturne — Dance  House , 
7 he  Embroidered  Curtain ,  The  Balcony ,  Zaandam, in  which  he  surpassed 
Rembrandt  in  Rembrandt’s  subject.  His  success  is  the  more  surprising 
because  scarcely  anywhere  does  the  artist  sketch  under  such  difficulties 
as  in  Holland.  The  little  Dutch  boys  are  the  worst  in  the  world, 
and  the  grown  people  as  bad.  In  Amsterdam,  the  women  in  the  houses 
on  one  of  the  canals,  where  Whistler  worked  in  a  boat,  emptied  buckets 
of  water  out  of  the  windows  above  him.  He  dodged  in  time,  but  had 
to  call  on  the  police,  and,  he  told  us,  the  next  interruption  was  a  big 
row  above,  and  “  I  looked  up,  dodging  the  filthy  pails,  to  see  the  women 
1889]  S  273 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

vanishing  backward  being  carried  off  to  wherever  they  carry  people 
in  Holland.  After  that,  I  had  no  more  trouble,  but  I  always  had  a 
policeman  whenever  I  had  a  boat.” 

In  the  Dutch  plates  he  returned  to  the  methods  perfected  at  Venice 
in  The  Traghetto  and  The  Beggars.  After  he  brought  them  back  to 
London  he  was  interviewed  on  the  subject  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette 
(March  4,  1890),  and  is  reported  to  have  said  : 

“  First  you  see  me  at  work  on  the  Thames.  Now,  there  you  see 
the  crude  and  hard  detail  of  the  beginner.  So  far,  so  good.  There, 
you  see,  all  is  sacrificed  to  exactitude  of  outline.  Presently  and  almost 
unconsciously  I  begin  to  criticise  myself  and  to  feel  the  craving  of  the 
artist  for  form  and  colour.  The  result  was  the  second  stage,  which 
my  enemies  call  inchoate  and  I  call  Impressionism.  The  third  stage 
I  have  shown  you.  In  that  I  have  endeavoured  to  combine  stages  one 
and  two.  You  have  the  elaboration  of  the  first  stage,  and  the  quality 
of  the  second.” 

Though  we  hesitate  to  accept  the  words  as  his,  this  is  an  interesting 
statement  and  a  suggestive  description.  In  some  of  the  Dutch  plates 
there  is  more  detail  than  in  the  Venetian,  and  yet  form  is  expressed 
not  by  the  detail  of  the  Thames  series  but  by  line.  No  etcher  had 
got  such  fullness  of  colour  without  a  mass  of  cross-hatching  that  takes 
away  from  the  freshness.  It  is  interesting  to  contrast  his  distant 
views  of  the  town  of  Amsterdam  and  the  windmills  of  Zaandam  with 
Rembrandt’s  etchings  of  the  same  subjects,  and  to  note  the  greater 
feeling  of  space  and  distance  that  Whistler  gives.  The  work  is  more 
elaborate  and  delicate  than  in  previous  plates,  so  delicate  sometimes 
that  it  seems  underbitten.  But  his  method  necessitated  this.  He 
drew  with  such  minuteness  that  hardly  any  of  the  ground,  the  varnish, 
was  left  on  the  plates,  and  when  he  bit  them,  he  could  only  bite  slightly 
to  prevent  the  modelling  from  being  lost.  He  never  had  been  so 
successful  in  applying  his  scientific  theories  to  etching,  and  rarely 
more  satisfied  with  the  results.  His  first  idea  was  to  publish  the  prints 
in  a  set,  through  the  Fine  Art  Society,  but  the  Fine  Art  Society  were 
so  foolish  as  to  refuse.  A  few  were  bought  at  once  for  the  South 
Kensington  and  Windsor  Collections,  and  several  were  shown  in  the 
spring  of  1890  at  Mr.  Dunthorne’s  gallery.  About  this  time  we 
returned  to  London,  and  J.  commenced  to  write  occasionally  in  the 
274  [1889-90 


Work 

London  Press,  succeeding  Mr.  George  Bernard  Shaw  as  art  critic  on 
the  Star.  This  is  his  impression,  written  when  he  saw  them 
(April  S)  : 

“  I  stepped  in  at  Dunthorne’s  the  other  afternoon  to  have  a  look 
at  the  etchings  of  Amsterdam  by  Mr.  Whistler.  There  are  only  eight 
of  them,  I  think,  but  they  are  eight  of  the  most  exquisite  renderings 
by  the  most  independent  man  of  the  century.  With  two  exceptions 
they  are  only  studies  of  very  undesirable  lodgings  and  tenements  on 
canal  banks,  old  crumbling  brick  houses  reflected  in  sluggish  canals, 
balconies  with  figures  leaning  over  them,  clothes  hanging  in  decorative 
lines,  a  marvellously  graceful  figure  carelessly  standing  in  the  great 
water-door  of  an  overhanging  house,  every  figure  filled  with  life  and 
movement,  and  all  its  character  expressed  in  half  a  dozen  lines.  The 
same  houses,  or  others,  at  night,  their  windows  illuminated  and  casting 
long  trailing  reflections  in  the  water,  seemed  to  be  singularly  unsuc¬ 
cessful,  the  plate  being  apparently  under-bitten  or  played  out.  At 
any  rate  that  was  the  impression  produced  on  me.  [We  know  now 
and  have  explained  the  reason  for  this.]  Another  there  was,  of  a 
stretch  of  country  looking  across  a  canal,  windmills  beyond  drawn 
as  no  one  since  Rembrandt  could  have  done  it,  and  in  his  plate  the 
greatest  of  modern  etchers  has  pitted  himself  against  the  greatest  of 
the  ancients,  and  has  come  through  only  too  successfully  for  Rembrandt. 
There  are  three  or  four  others,  I  understand,  not  yet  published,  but 
this  certainly  is  the  gem  so  far.  The  last  is  a  great  drawbridge,  with 
a  suggestion  of  trees  and  houses,  figures  and  boats,  and  a  tower  in 
the  distance,  done,  I  believe,  from  a  canal  in  Amsterdam.  This  is 
the  fourth  distinct  series  of  etchings  which  Mr.  Whistler  has  in  the 
last  thirty  or  thirty-five  years  given  the  world  :  the  early  miscellaneous 
French  and  English  plates ;  the  Thames  series,  valued  by  artists  more 
than  by  collectors,  though  even  to  the  latter  they  are  worth  more 
than  their  weight  in  gold  ;  the  Venetian  plates ;  and  now  these  ; 
and  between  while,  portraits  as  full  of  character  as  Rembrandt  s,  studies 
of  London  and  Brussels,  and  I  know  not  what  else  besides  have  come 
from  his  ever  busy  needle.  Had  Mr.  Whistler  never  put  brush  to 
canvas,  he  has  done  enough  in  these  plates  to  be  able  to  say  that 
he  will  not  altogether  die.” 

That  wras  J.’s  opinion  then,  and  he  has  not  had  to  change  it. 

1890]  Z7S 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

During  1890  Whistler  made  a  large  number  of  lithographs,  excellently 
catalogued  by  T.  R.  Way,  who  printed  most  of  them  and  was,  con¬ 
sequently,  qualified  for  the  task.  Three,  The  Winged  Hat,  The  Tyre- 
smith,  and  Maunder' s  dish  Shop,  Chelsea ,  were  published  this  year  in 
the  short-lived  occasional  weekly  The  Whirlwind,  edited  by  Herbert 
Vivian  and  Stuart  Erskine  “in  the  Legitimist  cause”  and  to  their 
own  great  amusement.  Drawings  by  Sidney  Starr  after  three  of 
Whistler’s  pictures  appeared,  and  the  editors  boasted  in  their  own 
pages  within  a  few  weeks  that  the  lithographs,  issued  for  a  penny, 
could  be  had  only  for  five  shillings.  Five  guineas  would  now  be 
nearer  the  price. 

Another  lithograph,  Chelsea  Rags,  came  out  in  the  January  number 
(1892)  of  the  Albemarle,  a  monthly  edited  by  Hubert  Crackanthorpe 
and  W.  H.  Wilkins,  one  of  those  gay  experiments  in  periodical  literature 
no  longer  made  in  this  sad  land.  The  four  were  called  Songs  on  Stone , 
the  later  title  for  a  proposed  portfolio  of  lithographs  in  colour  which 
Mr.  Heinemann  announced  but  never  issued. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII :  HONOURS.  EXHIBITIONS.  NEW 
INTERESTS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  EIGHTY-NINE  TO 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-ONE. 

Official  recognition  of  Whistler  in  England  was  followed  by  official 
honours  abroad.  While  President  of  the  British  Artists  he  was  asked 
for  the  first  time  to  show  in  the  International  Exhibition  at  Munich 
(1888).  He  sent  The  Yellow  Buskin  and  was  awarded  a  second-class 
medal.  The  best  comment  was  Whistler’s  letter  of  acknowledgment 
to  the  Secretary,  whom  he  prayed  to  convey  to  the  Committee  his 
“  sentiments  of  tempered  and  respectable  joy  ”  and  “  complete  appre¬ 
ciation  of  the  second-hand  compliment.”  But  soon  after  he  was 
elected  an  Honorary  Member  of  the  Bavarian  Royal  Academy,  and, 
a  year  later,  was  given  a  first-class  medal  and  the  Cross  of  St.  Michael- 
In  1889  he  was  made  Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honour  and  received 
a  first-class  medal  at  the  Paris  Universal  Exhibition.  Another  gold 
medal  was  awarded  to  him  at  Amsterdam,  where  he  was  showing  the 
Mother,  The  Fur  Jacket,  and  Effie  Deans— Arrangement  in  Yellow  and 
276  [1889-91 


PORTRAIT  OF  LADY  MEUX  IN  SABLES 

THIRD  PORTRAIT  (DESTROYED) 

Sketch  in  Pen  and  Wash  lent  by  Walter  Dowdeswell,  Esq. 


(See  page  210) 


Honours.  Exhibitions.  New  Interests 

Grey.  We  have  heard  that  Israels  and  Mesdag,  who  were  little  in 
sympathy  with  Whistler,  objected  to  giving  him  a  medal,  but  James 
Maris  insisted.  The  year  before  Mr.  E.  J.  Van  Wisselingh  had  bought 
from  Messrs.  Dowdeswell  Effie  Deans ,  which  he  had  seen  in  the  Edin¬ 
burgh  International  Exhibition  of  1886,  though  it  was  skied.  He 
sold  it  within  a  short  time  to  Baron  Van  Lynden,  of  The  Hague, 
then  making  his  collection,  bequeathed  by  the  Baroness  Van  Lynden 
in  1900  to  the  Rijks  Museum  at  Amsterdam.  The  picture  is  almost 
the  only  one  to  which  Whistler  gave  a  literary  title,  except  the  pastel 
Annabel  Lee.  Effie  Deans  is  apparently  a  portrait  of  Maud,  and  it 
belongs  to  the  period  of  Ihe  Fur  Jacket  and  Rosa  Corder.  The  Butterfly 
was  added  later.  The  painting  was  not  signed  when  bought  by  Baron 
Van  Lynden,  who,  hearing  from  Van  Wisselingh  that  Whistler  was  in 
Holland,  asked  him  to  sign  it.  Whistler  not  only  did  so,  but  we  believe 
then  added  the  quotation  from  the  Heart  oj  Midlothian  wr  tten  at 
the  bottom  of  the  canvas  :  “  She  sunk  her  head  upon  her  hand  and 
remained  seemingly  unconscious  as  a  statue,”  the  only  inscription  on 
any  of  his  paintings  that  we  have  seen.  Walter  Sickert  says  that  it  was 
added  by  some  one  else,  but  as  Whistler  saw  the  picture  in  1902  and 
made  no  objection  to  it,  Mr.  Sickert’s  statement  scarcely  seems  correct. 

Few  things  pleased  Whistler  more  than  the  honours  from  Amsterdam, 
Munich,  and  Paris.  To  celebrate  the  Bavarian  medal  and  decoration 
his  friends  gave  him  a  dinner  at  the  Criterion,  May  1,  1889.  Mr. 
E.  M.  Underdown,  Q.C.,  was  in  the  chair,  and  Mr.  W.  C.  Symons 
hon.  secretary.  Two  Royal  Academicians,  Sir  W.  Q.  Orchardson  and 
Mr.  Alfred  Gilbert,  were  present,  and  also  Sir  Coutts  Lindsay,  Stuart 
Wortley,  Edmund  Yates — Atlas,  who  never  failed  him — and  many 
others.  Whistler  was  moved,  and  not  ashamed  to  show  it.  Stuart 
Wortley,  in  a  speech,  said  that  Whistler  had  influenced  every  artist 
in  England  ;  Orchardson  described  him  as  “  a  true  artist  ”  ;  and  this 
time  Atlas  spoke,  not  only  with  the  weight  of  the  W orld  on  his  shoulders, 
but  with  praise  and  affection.  Whistler  began  his  speech  with  a  laugh 
at  this  “  age  of  rapid  results  when  remedies  insist  upon  their  diseases.” 
But  his  voice  is  said  to  have  been  full  of  emotion  before  the  end  : 

“  You  must  feel  that,  for  me,  it  is  no  easy  task  to  reply  under  con¬ 
ditions  of  which  I  have  so  little  habit.  We  are  all  even  too  conscious 
that  mine  has  hitherto,  I  fear,  been  the  gentle  answer  that  sometimes 
1889]  2?7 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

turneth  not  away  wrath.  ...  It  has  before  now  been  borne  in  upon 
me  that  in  surroundings  of  antagonism  I  may  have  wrapped  myself  for 
protection  in  a  species  of  misunderstanding,  as  that  other  traveller 
drew'  closer  about  him  the  folds  of  his  cloak  the  more  bitterly  the  winds 
and  the  storm  assailed  him  on  his  way.  But,  as  with  him,  when  the 
sun  shone  upon  him  in  his  path,  his  cloak  fell  from  his  shoulders,  so 
I,  in  the  warm  glow  of  your  friendship,  throw  from  me  all  former 
disguise,  and,  making  no  further  attempt  to  hide  my  true  feeling, 
disclose  to  you  my  deep  emotion  at  such  unwonted  testimony  of  affection 
and  faith.” 

This  was  the  only  public  testimonial  he  ever  received  in  England, 
and  one  of  the  few  public  functions  at  which  he  assisted.  He  seldom 
attended  public  dinners,  those  solemn  feasts  of  funeral  baked  meats 
by  which  “  the  Islander  soothes  his  conscience  and  purchases  public 
approval.”  We  remember  that  he  did  not  appear  at  the  first  dinner 
of  the  Society  of  Authors,  where  his  place  was  beside  ours-— a  dinner 
given  to  American  authors,  at  which  Lowell  presided.  J.  recalls  an 
artists’  dinner  at  which  Whistler  was  seated  on  one  side  of  the  chairman 
and  Charles  Keene  on  the  other.  Some  brilliant  person  had  placed 
Mr.  Wedmore  next  to  Whistler,  who  had  more  fun  at  the  dinner  than 
the  critic.  He  rarely  was  seen  in  the  City,  and  rarely  was  asked  in 

Paris.  As  an  outsider,  he  was  never  invited  to  the  Academy.  Even 

little  private  functions,  like  the  Johnson  Club,  to  which  J.  has  taken 
him,  he  did  not  care  for.  It  is  so  easy  to  be  bored,  so  difficult  to  be 

amused,  on  such  occasions.  He  preferred  not  to  run  the  risk. 

Of  gentle  answers  that  turn  not  away  wrath  there  were  plenty 
in  1889.  A*  the  Universal  Exhibition  in  Paris,  Whistler,  an  American, 
naturally  proposed  to  show  with  Americans.  The  Yellow  Buskin  and 
The  Balcony  were  the  pictures  he  selected  ;  he  sent  twenty-seven 
etchings,  knowing  that,  in  a  big  exhibition,  a  few  prints  make  no  effect. 
The  official  acknowledgment  was  a  printed  notice  from  General  Rush  C. 
Hawkins,  “  Cavalry  Officer,”  Commissioner  for  the  American  Art 
Department  :  “  Sir,— -Ten  of  your  exhibits  have  not  received  the 
approval  of  the  jury.  Will  you  kindly  remove  them  ?  ” 

Whistler’s  answer  was  an  immediate  journey  to  Paris,  a  call  on 
General  Hawkins,  the  withdrawal  of  all  his  prints  and  pictures,  to 
the  General’s  embarrassment.  Whistler  wrote  afterwards  to  the  New 
278  [1889 


Honours.  Exhibitions.  New  Interests 

York  Herald,  Paris  edition  :  “  Had  I  been  properly  advised  that  the 
room  was  less  than  the  demand  for  place,  I  would,  of  course,  have 
instantly  begged  the  gentlemen  of  the  jury  to  choose,  from  among 

the  number,  what  etchings  they  pleased.  _  ,  , 

Twenty-seven  etchings,  unless  specially  invited,  were  rather  a  large 
number  to  send  to  any  exhibition.  He  had  been  already  asked  to 
contribute  to  the  British  Section,  and  to  it  he  now  took  the  two  pictures 
and  ten  prints.  Though  General  Hawkins’  action  is  as  incomprehen¬ 
sible  as  his  appointment  to  such  a  post,  Whistler  made  a  mistake  There 
is  no  doubt  that,  had  his  seventeen  accepted  prints  remained  m  e 
American  Section,  he  would  have  had  a  much  better  show  than  m  the 
English,  where  only  ten  were  hung  and  where,  for  etching,  eymour 
Haden,  and  not  Whistler,  was  awarded  a  Grand  Pnx.  .  Whist  er  s 
Grievance  ”  got  into  the  papers,  and  the  letters  and  interviews  remain 
in  The  Gentle  Art.  If  in  1889  he  identified  himself  with  the  British, 
it  was  due  solely  to  the  discourtesy,  as  he  considered  it,  of  his  country¬ 
men.  There  was  no  denial  of  his  nationality,  and,  though  later  always 
invited  to  show  in  the  British  Section  of .  International  Exhibitions, 
he  always  refused  when  there  was  an  American  Section. 

In  1888  the  New  Gallery  took  over  the  played-out  traditions  of 
the  Grosvenor,  but  Whistler  did  not  follow  to  Regent  Street.  is 
Carlyle,  several  drawings,  and  many  etchings  went  to  the  Glasgow 
International  Exhibition  that  year,  and  he  was  well  represented  at 
the  first  show  of  the  Pastel  Society  at  the  Grosvenor.  He  was  more 
in  sympathy  with  the  New  English  Art  Club  than  any  other  group  of 
artists.  It  was  then  youthful  and  enthusiastic,  most  of  the  younger 
men  of  promise  or  talent  belonged,  and  it  might  have  accomplished 
great  things  had  its  founders  been  faithful  to  their  original  ambition. 
Whistler  was  never  a  member,  but  he  sent  a  White  Note  and  the  etc  mg 
of  the  Grande  Place ,  Brussels ,  to  the  exhibition  in  1888,  and  Rose  and 
Red  a  pastel,  in  1889,  when  he  was  elected  by  the  votes  of  the  exhibitors 
to  the  jury.  To  the  infinite  loss  of  the  club  he  never  showed  again. 
In  the  same  year  (1889),  at  the  Institute  of  the  Fine  Arts  at  Glasgow, 
the  Mother  strengthened  the  impression  made  by  the  Carlyle  the  year 
before  ;  there  was  a  show  of  his  work  in  May  at  the  College  of  Working 
Women  in  Queen  Square,  London  ;  and  A  he  Grey  Lady  was  included 
in  an  exhibition  at  the  Art  Institute,  Chicago,  in  the  fall. 

1889] 


279 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

The  show  at  Queen  Square  was  remarkable.  It  is  said  to  have  been 
“  organised  by  Mr.  Walter  Sickert,  by  permission  of  Miss  Goold  (head 
of  the  College),  and  opened  by  Lord  Halsbury.”  There  had  not  been 
such  a  representative  collection  of  his  work  since  his  exhibition  of 
1874*  The  Mother,  Carlyle ,  Rosa  Carder,  Irving  were  there,  many 
pastels  and  water-colours,  and  many  etchings  of  all  periods  from  the 
Thames  Series  to  the  last  in  Touraine  and  Belgium.  We  have  never 
seen  a  catalogue.  We  remember  how  it  impressed  us  when  we  came 
to  the  fine  Queen  Anne  house  in  the  quiet,  out-of-the-way  square, 
how  indignant  we  were  to  find  nobody  but  a  solitary  man  and  a 
young  lady  at  the  desk,  and  how  urgently  we  wrote  in  the  Star  that, 
‘  if  there  were  as  many  as  half  a  dozen  people  who  cared  for  good 
work,  they  should  go  at  once  to  see  this  exhibition  of  the  man  who 
has  done  more  to  influence  artists  than  any  modern.”  There  is 
a  legend  of  Whistler’s  coming  one  day,  taking  a  picture  from,  the 
wall  and  walking  away  with  it,  despite  the  protest  of  the  attendant 
and  the  Principal  of  the  College,  wishing,  so  the  legend  goes,  to 
carry  out  the  theory  he  was  soon  to  assert  that  pictures  were  only 
“  kindly  lent  their  owners.”  But  the  story  of  his  making  off  with 
it  across  the  square,  followed  by  the  college  staff  screaming  “  Stop 
thief,”  and  being  nearly  run  in  by  a  policeman,  is  a  poor  invention. 
His  desire,  however,  to  keep  his  pictures  in  his  possession,  his  hope  that 
those  who  bought  them  would  not  dispose  of  them,  was  growing,  and 
his  disgust  when  they  were  sold,  especially  at  increased  prices,  was 
expressed  in  his  answer  to  someone  who  said,  “  Staats  Forbes  tells  me 
that  that  picture  of  yours  he  has  will  be  the  last  picture  he  will  ever 
part  with.”  “  H’m,”  said  Whistler,  who  had  had  later  news,  "it  is  the 
last  picture  he  has.” 

In  March  1890  Whistler  moved  to  No.  21  Cheyne  Walk,  an  old 
house  with  a  garden  at  the  back,  farther  down  the  Embankment, 
close  to  Rossetti’s  Tudor  House.  It  was  panelled  from  the  street  door 
to  the  top.  A  cool  scheme  of  blue  and  white  decorated  the  dining¬ 
room,  where  there  was  one  perfect  painting  over  the  mantel,  and, 
Mr.  Francis  James  has  told  us,  the  Six  Projects  hung  for  a  while  on  the 
walls.  The  drawing-room  on  the  first  floor  was  turned  into  a  studio, 
there  was  a  bedroom  above,  but  the  rest  of  the  house  was  empty  and 
bare.  From  M.  Gerard  Harry  we  have  an  explanation  of  this  bareness : 

280  [1890 


Honours.  Exhibitions.  New  Interests 

“  I  remember  a  striking  remark  of  Whistler’s  at  a  garden-party 
in  his  Chelsea  house.  As  he  caught  me  observing  some  incompletely 
furnished  rooms  and  questioning  within  myself  whether  he  had  occupied 
the  house  more  than  a  fortnight  or  so  :  ‘  You  see,’  he  said,  with  his 

short  laugh,  ‘  I  do  not  care  for  definitely  settling  down  anywhere. 
Where  there  is  no  more  space  for  improvement,  or  dreaming  about 
improvement,  where  mystery  is  in  perfect  shape,  it  finis— the  end- 
death.  There  is  no  hope,  nor  outlook  left.’  I  do  not  vouch  for  the 
words,  but  that  was  certainly  the  sense  of  a  remark  which  struck  me 
as  offering  a  key  to  much  of  Whistler’s  philosophy,  and  to  one  aspect 
of  his  original  art.” 

On  September  24,  1890,  Mr.  Cole,  calling  at  Cheyne  Walk,  “  found 
him  painting  some  excellent  portraits— very  strong  and  fine.”  What 
all  these  were  it  is  difficult  to  say,  though  one  was  the  well-known 
Harmony  in  Black  and  Gold- — Comte  Robert  de  Montesquiou-Fezensac , 
Whistler’s  fourth  portrait  of  a  man  in  evening  dress.  Another  may 
have  been  the  second  portrait  never  finished,  which  Montesquieu 
described  to  Edmond  de  Goncourt,  who  made  a  note  of  it  in  his  Journal 
(July  7,  1891)  : 

“  Montesquiou  tells  me  that  Whistler  is  now  doing  two  portraits 
of  him  :  one  is  in  evening  dress,  with  a  fur  cloak  over  his  arm,  the  other 
in  a  great  grey  cloak  with  a  high  collar,  and,  just  suggested,  a  necktie 
of  a  mauve  not  to  be  put  into  words,  though  his  eyes  express  the  colour 
of  it.  And  Montesquiou  is  most  interesting  to  listen  to  as  he  explains 
the  method  of  painting  of  Whistler,  to  whom  he  gave  seventeen  sittings 
during  a  month  spent  in  London.  The  first  sketching-in  of  his  subject 
is  with  Whistler  a  fury,  a  passion  :  one  or  two  hours  of  this  wild  fever 
and  the  subject  emerges  complete  in  its  envelope.  Then  sittings, 
long  sittings,  when,  most  of  the  time,  the  brush  is  brought  close  to  the 
canvas  but  does  not  touch  it,  is  thrown  away,  and  another  taken,  and 
sometimes  in  three  hours  not  more  than  fifty  touches  are  given  to  the 
canvas,  every  touch,  according  to  Whistler,  lifting  a  veil  from  the 
sketch. 

“  Oh,  sittings  !  when  it  seemed  to  Montesquiou  that  Whistler, 
by  that  intentness  of  observation,  was  draining  from  him  his  life, 
something  of  his  individuality,  and,  in  the  end,  he  was  so  exhausted 
that  he  felt  as  if  all  his  being  was  shrinking  away,  but  happily  he 
1891]  281 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

discovered  a  certain  vin  de  coca  that  restored  him  after  those  terrible 
sittings.” 

J.  went  only  once  to  No.  21  Cheyne  Walk.  Then  it  was  to  consult 
Whistler  concerning  Sir  Hubert  von  Herkomer’s  publication  of  photo¬ 
gravures  of  pen-drawings  in  An  Idyl ,  and  description  of  them  as  etchings. 
Whistler  received  J.  in  the  white-panelled  dining-room,  where  he  was 
breakfasting  on  an  egg.  Sickert  came  in  and  was  at  once  sent  out— 
with  a  letter.  Whistler  felt  the  seriousness  of  the  offence,  and  he  lent 
his  support  to  W.  E.  Henley’s  National  Observer,  in  which  the  affair 
was  exposed  and  in  which  also  the  Queen  was  called  upon  to  remove 
Herkomer  from  his  post  as  Slade  Professor  at  the  University  of  Oxford. 

From  this  time  J.  saw  Whistler  oftener,  meeting  him  in  clubs, 
in  galleries,  in  friends’  houses,  occasionally  at  Solferino’s,  the  little 
restaurant  in  Rupert  Street  which  was  for  several  years  the  meeting- 
place,  a  club  really,  for  the  staff  of  the  National  Observer.  Nobody 
who  ever  lunched  there  on  Press  day  at  the  Academy,  or  the  New 
English  Art  Club,  or  the  New  Gallery  is  likely  to  forget  the  talk  round 
the  table  in  the  corner.  Never  have  we  heard  R.  A.  M. — “  Bob 
Stevenson  more  brilliant,  more  paradoxical,  more  inspiriting  than  at 
these  midday  gatherings.  Whistler’s  first  encounter  with  Henley’s 
paper,  then  edited  in  Edinburgh,  was  a  sharp  skirmish  which,  though 
he  afterwards  became  friendly  with  Henley,  he  never  forgot  nor  forgave. 
Henley  was  publishing  a  series  of  articles  called  Modern  Men,  among 
whom  he  included  Whistler,  “  the  Yankee  with  the  methods  of  Barnum.” 
The  policy  of  the  National  Observer  was  to  fight,  everybody,  every¬ 
thing,  and  it  fought  with  spirit.  But  it  had  no  patience  with  the  battles 
of  others.  Of  Whistler  the  artist  it  approved,  but  not  of  Whistler 
the  writer  of  letters,  whom  it  pronounced  rowdy  and  unpleasant. 
“  Malvolio-Macaire  ”  was  its  name  for  him.  At  last,  in  noticing 
Sheridan  Ford’s  Gentle  Art,  of  which  we  shall  presently  have  more 
to  say,  it  continued  in  the  same  strain,  and  a  copy  of  the  paper  con¬ 
taining  the  review,  “with  proud  mark,  in  the  blue  pencil  of  office,” 
was  sent  to  Whistler.  He  answered  with  a  laugh  at  “  the  thick  thumb 
of  your  editorial  refinement”  pointed  “in  deprecation  of  my  choice 
rowdyism.”  Two  things  came  of  the  letter — one  amusing,  the  other 
a  better  understanding.  Whistler’s  answer  finished  with  a  “  regret 
that  the  ridiculous  ‘  Romeike  ’  has  not  hitherto  sent  me  your  agreeable 
282  [1891 


Honours.  Exhibitions.  New  Interests 

literature.”  Romeike  objected  ;  he  had  sent  eight  hundred  and  seven 
clippings  to  Whistler  :  he  demanded  an  apology.  Whistler  gave  it 
without  hesitation  :  he  had  never  thought  of  Romeike  as  a  person, 
and  he  wrote,  “  if  it  be  not  actionable  permit  me  to  say  that  you  really 
are  delightful  !  !  ”  No  one  could  appreciate  the  wit,  the  fun  of  it 
all  better  than  Henley,  and  he  was  the  more  eager  to  meet  Whistler. 
His  account  of  the  meeting,  when  it  came  about,  was  coloured  by  the 
enthusiasm  that  made  Henley  the  stimulating  person  he  was.  And 
we  met,”  he  would  say,  throwing  back  his  great  head  and  laughing 
with  joy,  though  he  gave  no  details  of  the  meeting.  Henley  managed 
to  find  “  the  earnest  of  romance  ”  in  everything  that  happened  to  him. 
“  And  there  we  were— Whistler  and  I— together  !  ”  he  would  repeat, 
as  if  it  were  the  most  dramatic  situation  that  could  be  imagined. 

The  bond  between  them  was  their  love  of  the  Thames.  Henley 
was  the  first  to  sing  the  beauty  of  the  river  that  Whistler  was  the 
first  to  paint,  and  when  he  wrote  the  verses  ( N o.  XIII.  in  Rhymes  and 
Rhythms)  that  give  the  feeling,  the  magical  charm  of  the  Nocturnes, 
he  dedicated  them  to  Whistler.  Big  and  splendid  as  a  Viking,  exuberant, 
emphatic,  Henley  was  not  the  type  physically  to  interest  Whistler. 
The  sketch  of  him  (made  in  1896)  is  one  of  Whistler’s  least  satisfactory 
lithographs,  and  only  six  impressions  were  pulled.  But  their  relations 
were  cordial,  and  when  the  National  Observer  was  transferred  to  London 
and  Henley  returned  with  it,  Whistler  sometimes  came  to  the  dinners 
of  the  staff  at  Solferino’s.  Henley  had  gathered  about  him  the  younger 
literary  men  and  journalists :  Rudyard  Kipling,  Bob  Stevenson, 
J.  M.  Barrie,  Marriott  Watson,  G.  S.  Street,  Vernon  Blackburn,  Fitz- 
maurice  Kelly,  Arthur  Morrison,  Charles  Whibley,  Kenneth  Grahame, 
George  W.  Steevens.  After  Mr.  Astor  bought  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette 
its  staff  was  largely  recruited  from  the  National  Observer ,  and  Mr. 
Henry  Cust,  the  editor,  and  Mr.  Ivan-Muller,  the  assistant  editor,  joined 
the  group  in  the  room  upstairs.  When  dinner  was  over  and  Henley 
was  thundering  at  his  end  of  the  table,  the  rest  listening,  Whistler 
sometimes  dropped  in,  and  the  contrast  between  him  and  Henley 
added  to  the  gaiety  of  the  evening  :  Henley,  the  “  Burly  ”  of  Stevenson’s 
essay  on  Talk  and  Talkers,  “who  would  roar  you  down  .  .  .  bury 
his  face  in  his  hands  .  .  .  undergo  passions  of  revolt  and  agony  ”  ; 
Whistler,  who  would  find  the  telling  word,  let  fly  the  shaft  of  wit 
1891]  2g3 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

that  his  eloquent  hands  emphasised  with  delicate,  graceful  gesture. 
His  “  Ha  ha  !  ”  rose  above  Henley’s  boisterous  intolerance.  When 
"Bob5'  Stevenson  was  there-—"  Spring-Heel’d  Jack  ” — the  enter¬ 
tainment  was  complete.  But  each  of  the  three  talked  his  best  when 
he  held  the  floor,  and  we  have  known  Whistler  more  brilliant  when 
dining  alone  with  us.  From  Solferino’s,  at  a  late  hour  when  Henley, 
as  always  in  his  lameness,  had  been  helped  to  his  cab,  Whistler  and  J. 
would  retire  with  “  Bob  ”  Stevenson  and  a  little  group  to  the  Savile, 
where  everything  under  heaven  was  discussed  by  them,  Professor 
Walter  Raleigh,  Reginald  Blomfield,  and  Charles  Furse  frequently 
joining  them,  and  they  rarely  left  until  the  club  was  closed.  Whistler 
would,  in  his  turn,  be  seen  to  his  cab  on  his  way  home,  and  a  smaller 
group  would  listen  to  “  Bob  ”  between  Piccadilly  and  Westminster 
Bridge,  waiting  for  him  to  catch  the  first  morning  train  to  Kew. 

Whistler  seldom  left  without  some  parting  shot  which  his  friends 
remembered,  though  he  was  apparently  unconscious  of  the  effects  of 
these  bewildering  little  sayings  as  he  returned  to  his  house  in  Cheyne 
Walk.  There  he  was  often  followed  by  his  new  friends  and  often  visited 
by  the  few  “  artists  ”  he  had  not  cared  to  lose,  especially  Mr.  Francis 
James  and  Mr.  Theodore  Roussel.  A  few  Followers  continued  to 
flutter  at  his  heels.  Portraits  of  some  of  those  who  came  to  21  Cheyne 
Walk  are  in  the  lithograph  of  The  Garden  :  Mr.  Walter  Sickert,  Mr. 
Sidney  Starr,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Brandon  Thomas.  Mr.  Walter  Sickert- 
had  married  Miss  Ellen  Cobden,  and  she  was  a  constant  visitor.  So 
also  were  Henry  Harland,  later  editor  of  the  Yellow  Book,  and  Mrs. 
Harland ;  Wolcot  Balestier,  the  enterprising  youth  who  set  out  to 
corner  the  literature  of  the  world,  and  who,  with  Mr.  S.  S.  McClure, 
was  bent  on  syndicating  everybody,  including  Whistler  ;  Miss  Carrie 
Balestier,  now  Mrs.  Rudyard  Kipling  ;  an  American  journalist  called 
Haxton,  with  a  stammer  that  Whistler  adored  to  the  point  of  borrowing 
it  on  occasions,  though  he  never  could  manage  the  last  stage  when 
words  that  refused  to  be  spoken  had  to  be  spelled.  Another  was 
Andre  Raffalovitch,  a  Russian  youth  and  poet,  whose  receptions  brought 
together  many  amusing  as  well  as  fantastic  elements  of  London  society. 
But  the  most  intimate  friend  he  made  at  this  period  was  Mr.  William 
Heinemann,  and  this  brings  us  to  the  great  event  of  1890,  the  publication 
of  The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies. 


284 


[1891 


“  The  Gentle  Art  ” 

CHAPTER  XXXIV:  “THE  GENTLE  ART.”  THE  YEAR 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY. 

For  years  Whistler’s  letters  to  the  papers  puzzled  the  people.  George 
Moore  laboured  to  account  for  them  in  Modern  Painting  by  an  elaborate 
theory  of  physical  feebleness,  and  George  Moore  has  been  taken  seriously 
in  the  provinces  and  America.  One  glimpse  of  Whistler  at  the  printing- 
press,  sleeves  rolled  up  showing  two  strong  arms,  and  the  theory  and 
the  theorist  would  have  been  knocked  out.  The  letters  were  not  an 
eccentricity ;  they  were  not  a  weakness.  From  the  first,  written 
to  the  Athenceum  in  1862,  they  had  one  aim,  to  make  history. 
Buried  in  the  papers,  they  were  lost ;  if  the  history  were  to  be  made 
they  must  be  collected.  They  were  collected  and  edited  as  Phe  Gentle 
Art  of  Making  Enemies  as  Pleasingly  Exemplified  in  Many  Instances, 
Wherein  the  Serious  Ones  of  this  Earth ,  Carefully  Exasperated,  Have 
Been  Prettily  Spurred  on  to  Unseemliness  and  Indiscretion,  While  Overcome 
by  an  Undue  Sense  of  Right. 

The  book,  born  of  years  of  fighting,  was  ushered  into  the  world  by 
a  fight.  The  work  of  collecting  and  arranging  the  letters  was  undertaken 
by  Mr.  Sheridan  Ford,  an  American  journalist  in  London.  Whistler 
said  that  Ford  only  helped  him.  Ford  said  that  the  idea  was  his, 
that  he,  with  Whistler’s  approval,  was  collecting  and  editing  the 
letters  for  a  publication  of  his  own.  We  give  Ford’s  story  and  that  of 
one  who  followed  it  at  the  time,  Mr.  J.  McLure  Hamilton,  and  this  we 
are  better  pleased  to  do  because  Whistler  misunderstood  Mr.  Hamilton’s 
part  in  the  matter,  and  credited  him  with  a  malice  and  enmity  that 
few  men  could  be  so  incapable  of  as  he.  Whistler  would  never  consent 
to  meet  him  and  could  not  understand  why  we  should  not  agree  in 
his  view  of  Mr.  Hamilton  as  “  a  dangerous  person.”  By  accident 
they  did  meet  in  our  flat.  Whistler  was  dining  with  us,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Hamilton  called  in  the  evening.  Other  people  were  there,  and  they 
simply  ignored  one  another  ;  chance  had  blundered  in  its  choice  of 
the  moment  for  the  meeting.  We  think  Whistler  would  have  felt 
the  unfairness  of  his  judgment  of  Mr.  Hamilton’s  conduct  could  he 
have  read  Mr.  Hamilton’s  version  which  he  has  sent  us  : 

“  In  the  spring  of  1889  1  met  Mr-  an^  Mrs.  Sheridan  Ford. 
Sheridan  Ford  was  writing  for  the  New  Tork  Herald ,  and  Mrs.  Sheridan 
1890]  285 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Ford  had  been  interesting  picture-dealers  in  the  work  of  Swan,  Clausen, 
Melville,  and  others.  Ford  had  a  very  strong  taste  for  art,  and  seemed 
to  be  opposed  to  all  forms  of  trickery,  and  was  engaged  on  a  series  of 
articles  which  appeared  in  the  New  York  Herald,  London  edition, 
upon  Whistler  and  his  work.  He  was  also  the  author  of  Art,  a  Com¬ 
modity,  a  pamphlet  widely  read  both  in  England  and  America.  He 
came  to  me  one  day,  and  told  me  of  an  idea  that  he  thought  could  be 
carried  out  with  advantage  to  himself  and  Whistler.  He  suggested 
that  the  letters  which  Whistler  had  been  publishing  from  time  to 
time  in  the  Press  should  be  published  in  book  form.  The  title  was  to 
be  The  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies,  and  was,  I  understood,  Ford’s. 
Whistler  and  he  had  talked  the  matter  over,  and  it  was  agreed  between 
them  that  Ford  should  collect  the  letters,  edit  them  with  remarks  of  his 
own,  and  publish  the  book  for  his  own  profit. 

“  The  work  went  on  for  some  months,  and  occasionally  Ford  would 
bring  me  letters  that  he  had  unearthed  from  the  newspaper  files,  at 
the  British  Museum  to  read.  I  was  not  acquainted  with  Whistler, 
but  from  what  Ford  told  me  I  understood  that  Whistler  was  as  much 
interested  in  the  progress  of  the  book  as  Ford.  The  latter  seemed 
to  be  looking  forward  with  great  eagerness  to  the  production  of  a  book 
which  could  not  fail  to  amuse  the  art  world. 

“  One  morning  Ford  came  to  me  at  Alpha  House  in  great  distress. 
He  brought  with  him  a  letter  from.  Whistler  requesting  him  to  dis¬ 
continue  the  making  of  the  book,  and  containing  a  cheque  for  ten 
pounds  in  payment  for  the  trouble  that  he  had  had  in  collecting  the 
materials.  The  book  at  that  time  was  almost  complete,  and  the  preface 
written.  After  a  prolonged  talk  with  him  upon  all  the  bearings  of 
the  case,  I  concluded  that  Whistler’s  change  of  mind  had  been  deter¬ 
mined  by  the  discovery  that  there  would  be  too  much  credit  and  profit 
lost  to  him  if  he  allowed  Ford  to  bring  out  the  work,  and  that  probably 
Mrs.  Whistler  had  suggested  to  Whistler  that  it  would  be  a  great  gain 
to  him  if  he  were  to  issue  the  letters  himself.  Ford  asked  me  what 
I  would  advise  him  to  do.  I  replied  that  I  personally  would  not 
go  on  with  the  book,  but  that  if  he  were  careful  to  omit  all  copyright 
matter  he  would  be  perfectly  justified  in  continuing,  after  having, 
of  course,  returned  the  cheque  to  Whistler.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
Ford  asked  the  advice  of  others,  for  soon  he  brought  me  the  advance 

286  [1890 


“  The  Gentle  Art  ” 

proofs  to  read,  and  I  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  going  over  them., 
sometimes  suggesting  alterations  and  improvements.  A  note  from 
Ford  reached  me  telling  me  that  the  book  was  finished,  and  asking 
mv  permission  to  dedicate  it  to  me.  I  wrote,  in  reply,  that  I  did 
not  wish  the  work  dedicated  to  me.  Ford  found  a  good  publisher 
who  was  willing  to  undertake  the  publication  of  the  work,  and,  as  far 
as  I  could  see,  everything  was  going  on  satisfactorily,  when  one  morning 
Ford  called  to  see  me  and  told  me  that  Whistler  had  discovered  the 
printer  and  had  threatened  to  proceed  against  him  if  he  did  not  imme¬ 
diately  destroy  the  sheets,  and  he  (Whistler)  found  and  seized  the 
first  sewn-up  copy  (or  leaves)  with  my  name  on  the  dedication  page, 

in  spite  of  the  refusal  I  had  given. 

[The  dedication  was  as  follows  :  “  Dedicated  to  John  McLure 
Hamilton,  A  Great  Painter  and  a  Charming  Comrade.  In  Memory 
of  Many  Pleasant  Days.”  The  proposed  title  was  The  Gentle  Art  of 
Making  Enemies.  J.  McNeill  Whistler  as  the  Unattached  Writer. 
With  Some  Whistler  Stories  Old  and  New.  Edited  hy  Sheridan  Ford. 
Brentano’s.  London,  Paris,  New  Fork,  Washington,  Chicago,  1890. 
Both  dedication  and  title  we  have  seen  in  Ford’s  handwriting.] 

“This  brought  at  once  a  letter  from  Whistler  to  me,  in  which 
he  abruptly  accused  me  of  assisting  Ford  in  wronging  him.  I  replied 
in  a  few  words  denying  his  allegations.  At  this  interview  Ford  s  manner 
was  strange,  and  for  several  weeks  after  he  was  confined  to  his  house, 
a  natural  consequence  of  seeing  all  his  hopes  shattered.  He  had 
foreseen  in  the  successful  production  of  The  Gentle  Art  oj  Making 
Enemies  the  opening  of  a  happy  and  profitable  career  in  letters.  After 
his  recovery  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ford  went  away,  pursued  by  the  relentless 
activity  of  Whistler.  In  the  end,  the  so-called  pirated  edition, 
paper-bound,  appeared  in  Mechlin  or  some  other  Continental  city 
and  was  more  or  less  clandestinely  offered  for  sale  in  England.  Whistler  s 
handsome  volume  appeared  almost  simultaneously. 

“  While  these  incidents  were  progressing,  I  was  asked  to  dine 
at  the  Hogarth  Club,  and  it  had  evidently  been  prearranged^  that 
I  should  meet  Whistler  after  dinner  in  the  smoking-room.  This  was 
my  first  introduction  to  the  great  master.  We  talked  Art  and  common¬ 
place,  but  he  never  touched  upon  the  subject  of  the  book,  and  as  I 
was  quite  sure  the  meeting  had  been  arranged  in  order  that  he  might 
1890]  287 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

discuss  with  me  Ford’s  conduct,  I  could  not  understand  his  silence. 
Our  next  meeting  was  at  a  conversazione  held  at  the  Grosvenor  Galleries, 
when  we  both  freely  discussed  together  the  whole  question  before 
Melville,  who  was  displeased  at  the  attitude  I  took  with  Whistler. 
I  frankly  told  him  that  I  thought  he  had  done  Ford  a  great  wrong  in 
withdrawing  the  editorship  of  the  book  which  rightly  belonged  to 
him.” 

Sheridan  Ford,  persisting  that  Whistler  had  conferred  on  him 
the  right  to  publish  the  collection,  announced  the  simultaneous  publi¬ 
cation  of  his  book  in  England  and  America.  The  English  publishers, 
Messrs.  Field  and  Tuer,  of  the  Leadenhall  Press,  supposed  that  Ford 
was  acting  for  Whistler  when  he  brought  them  the  MS.,  which  at 
that  time  is  said  to  have  been  called  The  Correspondence  oj  James 
McNeill  Whistler.  The  text  was  set  up  and  cast,  the  type  distributed  ; 
they  were  ready  to  print  when  they  discovered  their  mistake.  “  We 
then  sent  for  the  person  in  question,”  they  wrote  to  Messrs.  Lewis 
and  Lewis,  Whistler’s  solicitors,  "and  told  him  that  until  he  obtained 
Mr.  Whistler’s  sanction,  we  declined  to  proceed  further  with  the 
work.” 

Sheridan  Ford  went  to  Antwerp,  and  had  the  book  printed  there. 
Sir  George  Lewis  followed  and  seized  the  edition  at  the  printers’  on 
the  day  of  publication,  when  vans  for  its  distribution  were  at  their 
door.  .  The  two  thousand  copies  were  carried  off  by  the  Procureur 
du  Roi.  The  matter  came  before  the  Belgian  Courts  in  October  1891, 
M.  Edmond  Picard  and  Maitre  Maeterlinck,  cousin  of  Maeterlinck 
the  poet,  appearing  for  Whistler.  M.  Harry,  of  the  Indefendance 
Beige,  described  Whistler  in  the  witness-box,  with  the  eyes  of  a  Mephis- 
topheles  flashing  and  sparkling  under  the  thick  eyebrows,  his  manner 
easy  and  gay,  his  French  fluent  and  perfect.  He  was  asked  his  religion 
and  hesitated.  The  Judge,  thinking  to  help  him,  suggested,  "  A 
Protestant,  perhaps  ?  ”  His  answer  was  a  little  shrug,  as  much  as  to 
say,  “lam  quite  willing.  You  should  know.  As  you  choose  !  ”  He 
was  asked  his  age— even  the  Belgian  reporter  respected  his  objection 
to  having  any.  Judgment  was  given  for  him.  Sheridan  Ford  was 
sentenced  to  a  fine  of  five  hundred  francs  or  three  months’  imprison¬ 
ment  ,  to  three  thousand  francs  damages  or  three  months  more  ;  to 
the  confiscation  of  the  two  thousand  copies,  and  to  costs.  After  the 
288  [1890 


“The  Gentle  Art” 


trial  Whistler  was  taken  to  the  cellars  of  the  Palais  de  Justice,  and  shown 
the  confiscated  copies,  stored  there  with  other  fradulent  goods,  by 
the  law  of  Belgium  destined  to  perish  in  dampness  and  gloom. 

The  affair  has  not  been  forgotten  in  Belgium — nor  has  Whistler* 
One  impression  has  been  written  for  us  by  M.  Edmond  Picard,  the 
distinguished  Senator,  his  advocate  : 

“  En  me  demandant  de  parler  de  Villustre  et  regrette  Whistler ,  vous 
ne  desirez  certes  pas  que  j’ajoute  mon  lot  d  la  riche  pyramide  d' admiration 
et  ddeloges  definitivement  erigee  d  sa  gloire. 

“  11  ne  peut  s’agir,  dans  votre  pensee  que  de  ce  que  je  pourrais  ajouter 
de  special  et  de  pittoresque  a  la  Biographic  du  Grand  Artiste. 

“  Si  j’ai  beaucoup  vu  et  aime  ses  oeuvres ,  je  id  ai  qu’entrevu  son 
originale  personne. 

“  Void  deux  traits  interessants  qui  s'y  rapportenti 

“  II  y  a  quelques  annees  il  s’inquieta  dhune  contrefapon  qu’un  etr  anger 
habitant  Anvers  avait  perpetre  en  Belgique  de  son  curieux  livre ,  ‘  V Art 
charmant  de  se  faire  des  ennemisd  Je  le  vis  un  jour  entrer  dans  mon 
cabinet  et  il  me  dit  avec  un  sourire  sarcastique ,  ‘  Je  souhaiterais  que 
vous  fussiez  mon  avocat  dans  cette  petite  affaire  parcequ'on  md  a  dit  que 
vous  pratiquez  aussi  bien  que  moi  Vart  charmant  de  se  faire  des  ennemisd 

“  Le  proces  jut  gagne  a  Anvers  avec  la  collaboration  de  mon  confrere , 
M.  Maeterlinck ,  parent  du  poete  qui  honors  tant  noire  pays.  On  celebra 
chez  lui  cette  victoire.  Quand  Whistler ,  heros  de  la  fete ,  arriva  dans 
Vhospitaliere  maison,  il  s’attardait  dans  V anticham.br e.  La  bonne  qui 
V avait  repu  vint ,  avec  quelque  effarement ,  dire  en  jlamand  au  salon  ou 
Von  attendait ,  ‘  Madame,  Best  un  acteur  ;  il  se  coiffe  devant  le  miroir ,  il  se 
pommade,  il  se  met  du  fard  et  de  la  poudre  J  ’  A  pres  un  assez  long  inter¬ 
vals,  Whistler  parut,  courtois ,  correct,  cite,  cosmetique,  pimpant  comme 
le  papillon  que  rappele  son  nom  et  qidil  mit  en  signature  sur  quelques-uns 
des  billets  qidil  ecrivit  alors  d  ses  conseils. 

“  Et  voild  tout  ce  que  je  puis  vous  offrir. 

“  J’ai  demands  d  M.  Maeterlinck  les  documents  qu’il  pouvait  avoir 
conserves  de  cet  episode  judiciaire.  Ses  recherches  ont  ete  vaines.  Alors 
que  dd innombrables  pieces  insignifi antes  ont  ete  conservees,  le  Hasard 
qui  se  permet  tout  a  fait  disparaitre  ces  precieuses  epavesd ’  * 

The  “  Extraordinary  Piratical  Plot,”  as  Whistler  called  it  in  The 
ZL-*  See  Appendix  at  end  of  volume. 

T 


1890] 


289 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Gentle  Art ,  did  not  end  in  Antwerp.  Sheridan  Ford  took  the  book 
to  Paris,  where  it  was  issued  by  Delabrosse  et  Cie,  1890,  though  it  is 
said  by  Mr.  Don  C.  Seitz  to  have  been  printed  in  Ghent  ;  in  Antwerp, 
Mr.  Ford  recently  told  an  interviewer — this  edition  we  have  seen 
while  other  copies,  with  the  imprint  of  Frederick  Stokes  and  Brother, 
were  sent  to  the  United  States.  Sir  George  Lewis  suppressed  the 
Paris  edition  and  prevented  the  importation  of  the  book  into  England, 
and  Messrs.  Stokes  cabled  to  London  that  their  name  was  used  without 
their  permission.  The  balance  of  the  edition  is  stated  to  have  been 
destroyed  by  fire.  Copies  through  the  post  reached  England,  sent 
to  newspapers  for  review  and  to  individuals  supposed  to  be  interested, 
among  whom  we  were  included.  In  June  1890  a  so-called  “second 
edition  ”  from  Paris  was  received  by  some  papers.  Mr.  Seitz  says  that 
hardly  any  copies  are  in  existence.  Sheridan  Ford  says  that  nine 
thousand  were  sold.  But  that  was  the  last  heard  of  it,  and  Sheridan 
Ford’s  book  was  killed. 

judging  from  the  facts,  Whistler  treated  Ford  badly,  but  Sheridan 
Ford  acted  in  defiance  of  Whistler,  and  in  the  Paris  edition  published  an 
article  so  vile  that  papers  refused  to  print  it.  Three  versions  are  given 
as  to  the  cause  of  the  quarrel.  The  first  is  that  Mrs.  Whistler  inter¬ 
fered  and  told  Whistler  to  take  the  work  over  himself  ;  the  second 
is  Sheridan  Ford’s  statement  that  Whistler  wished  M.  Duret  to  prepare 
the  book  ;  and  the  third  is  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Seitz  that  the  difference 
arose  over  the  insertion  of  a  letter  of  Oscar  Wilde’s.  As  this  letter 
was  printed  in  Whistler’s  edition,  Mr.  Seitz’s  conclusions  are  of  little 
value  and  his  assertions  differ  from  Sheridan  Ford’s  contemporary 
tale.  Whistler’s  version,  published  by  Sheridan  Ford  in  the  letter 
dated  August  18,  1889,  is  :  “I  think,  for  many  reasons,  we  would  do 
well  to  postpone  the  immediate  consideration  of  the  proposed  publi¬ 
cation  for  a  while.  At  this  moment  I  find  myself  curiously  interested 
in  certain  paintings,  the  production  of  which  might  appropriately 
be  made  anterior  to  mere  literature.”  We  have  heard  that  he  was 
urged  to  come  to  this  decision  by  Mr.  Theodore  Roussel,  who  told 
him.  he  ought  to  prepare  the  book,  pay  Sheridan  Ford,  and  get  rid  of 
him.  Whistler  obtained  possession  of  Sheridan  Ford’s  work,  or  rather 
of  his  letters  collected  by  Sheridan  Ford,  arranged  them,  commented 
on  them,  and  published  them  in  his  own  fashion.  Sheridan  Ford’s 
290  [1890 


“  The  Gentle  Art  ” 


book  is  undistinguished  ;  Whistler’s  contains  on  every  page  evidence 
of  his  care  in  carrying  out  his  ideas  of  book  decoration. 

Whistler,  who  was  delighted  with  Mr.  William  Heinemann’s 
artistic  instinct,  sympathy,  enthusiasm,  and  quick  appreciation  of  his 
intention,  gave  him  the  book  to  publish.  From  the  day  their  agree¬ 
ment  was  signed  the  publisher  entered  into  the  matter  with  all  his 
heart.  Whistler’s  fights  were  his  fights,  Whistler’s  victories  his 
victories.  Whistler  was  flattered  by  his  understanding  of  things  and 
came  daily  almost  to  take  out  his  “  publisher,  philosopher,  and  friend,” 
as  he  described  Mr.  Heinemann,  to  breakfast  at  the  Savoy.  He  would 
arrive  at  eleven,  when  the  business  man  had  hardly  got  into  the  swing 
of  his  morning’s  work.  Was  it  not,  preposterous  that  there  should 
be  other  books  to  be  prepared,  other  matters  to  be  thought  of,  while 
this  great  work  of  art  was  being  born  ?  The  Savoy  balcony  overlooking 
the  Embankment  was,  at  so  early  an  hour,  deserted,  and  there  they 
could  discuss,  change,  and  arrange  every  detail  without  inter¬ 
ruption.  Hours  were  spent  often  over  a  single  Butterfly,  and  usually 
Whistler’s  pockets  were  full  of  gay  and  fantastic  entomological 
drawings. 

Whistler  was  constantly  at  the  Ballantyne  Press,  where  the  book 
was  printed.  He  chose  the  type,  he  spaced  the  text,  he  placed  the 
Butterflies,  each  of  wdiich  he  designed  to  convey  a  meaning.  They 
danced,  laughed,  mocked,  stung,  defied,  triumphed,  drooped  wings 
over  the  farthing  damages,  spread  them  to  fly  across  the  Channel, 
and  expressed  every  word  and  every  thought.  He  designed  the  title- 
page  ;  a  design  contrary  to  established  rules,  but  with  the  charm, 
the  balance,  the  harmony,  the  touch  of  personality  he  gave  to  every¬ 
thing,  and  since  copied  and  prostituted  by  foolish  imitators  who  had 
no  conception  of  its  purpose.  Mr.  MacCall,  of  the  Ballantyne  Press, 
has  told  us  of  his  interest  and  has  a  proof  of  it  in  a  collection  of 
Butterflies  and  proof  sheets  covered  with  Whistler’s  corrections.  Here, 
too,  as  everywhere  by  those  he  worked  with,  he  is  remembered  with 
affection,  and  the  printers  were  delighted  to  profit  by  his  suggestions. 
The  cover  was  in  brown,  with  a  yellow  back.  The  title,  though  attri¬ 
buted  to  Sheridan  Ford,  can  be  traced  to  Whistler’s  speech  at  the 
Criterion  dinner  and  the  gentle  answer  that  turneth  not  away  wrath. 
The  dedication  is  :  “To  the  rare  Few,  who,  early  in  Life,  have  rid 
1890]  291 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Themselves  of  the  Friendship  of  the  Many,  these  pathetic  Papers 
are  inscribed.” 

The  book  was  published  in  June  1890  and  has  gone  through  three 
editions,  Messrs.  John  M.  Lovell  and  Co.,  and  then  Messrs.  Putnam’s 
Sons,  issuing  it  in  America.  It  met  the  fate  of  all  his  works.  The  Press 
received  it  with  the  usual  smile  at  Mr.  Whistler’s  eccentricities,  and 
here  and  there  a  word  of  praise  and  appreciation  said  with  more 
courage  than  of  old.  To  the  multitude  of  readers  it  was  a  jest  ; 
to  a  saving  remnant  it  was  serious,  to  none  more  serious  than  to 
Whistler,  who  knew  it  would  live  with  the  writings  of  Cellini,  Dtirer, 
and  Reynolds. 

The  Gentle  Art  is  an  artistic  autobiography.  Whistler  gave  the 
sub-title  Auto-Biographical  to  one  section— he  might  have  given  it  to 
the  whole.  He  had  a  way,  half-laughing,  half-serious,  of  calling  it 
his  Bible.  “  Well,  you  know,  you  have  only  to  look  and  there  it  all 
is  in  the  Bible,”  or  “  I  am  afraid  you  do  not  know  the  Bible  as  you 
should,”  he  often  said  to  us  in  answer  to  some  question  about  his 
work  or  his  life.  The  trial,  the  pamphlets,  The  Ten  O' Clock,  the  Pro¬ 
positions,  the  letters,  the  catalogues  take  their  place  and  appear  in  their 
proper  sequence,  not  as  disconnected,  inconsequent  little  squibs  and 
the  elaborate  bids  for  notoriety  they  were  supposed  to  be.  The  book, 
which  may  be  read  for  its  wit,  is  really  his  Manifesto. 

He  included  also  the  criticisms  and  comments  that  had  provoked 
him  into  print,  for  his  object  was  to  expose  the  stupidity  and  ridicule 
he  was  obliged  to  face,  so  that  his  method  of  defence  should  be  under¬ 
stood.  To  read  the  book  is  to  wonder  the  more  that  there  should 
have  been  necessity  for  defence,  so  simple  and  right  is  his  theory,  so 
sincere  and  reverent  his  attitude.  We  have  spoken  of  most  of  the 
different  subjects  in  it  as  they  appeared.  The  collection  intensifies 
the  effect  each  made  individually.  Everything  he  wrote  had  the  same 
end  :  to  show  that  “  art  should  be  independent  of  all  clap-trap  ; 
should  stand  alone,  and  appeal  to  the  artistic  sense  of  eye  or  ear,  without 
confounding  this  with  emotions  entirely  foreign  to  it,  as  devotion, 
pity,  love,  patriotism,  and  the  like.  All  these  have  no  kind  of  concern 
with  it,  and  that  is  why  I  insist  on  calling  my  works  '  arrangements  ’ 
and  ‘  harmonies.’  ” 

It  was  for  the  “  knowledge  of  a  lifetime  ”  his  work  was  to  be 

292  [1890 


“The  Gentle  Art  ” 


valued,  he  told  the  Attorney-General  in  court.  In  this  paragraph, 
and  in  this  answer,  you  have  the  key  to  The  Gentle  Art.  hault  may  be 
found  with  arguments  ;  facts  and  methods  may  be  challenged.  But 
analysis,  description,  technical  statement,  and  explanation  are  so 
many  proofs  of  his  belief  in  the  independence  of  art  and  of  his 
surrender  to  that  untiring  devotion  which  the  “  goddess  ”  demands  of 
her  disciples. 

It  would  seem  impossible  that  his  statement  of  simple  truths  should 
have  been  suspected,  were  it  not  remembered  that  art  in  England 
depended  mostly  on  “  clap-trap  ”  when  Whistler  wrote,  and  that 
his  manner  of  meeting  suspicion  was  intended  to  mystify.  He  took 
care  that  his  book  should  be  the  expression  not  only  of  his  belief  but 
of  his  conception  of  art.  Stupidity  in  critics  and  public  hurt  him  as 
much  as  insincerity  in  artists,  and  when  confronted  with  it  he  was 
pitiless.  Dullness,  too,  he  could  not  stand.  He  met  it  with  “  joyous¬ 
ness  ”  :  to  be  “  joyous  ”  was  his  philosophy  of  life  and  art,  “  where 
all  is  fair,”  and  this  philosophy  to  the  multitude  was  an  enigma.  His 
letters  to  the  Press  are  apt  to  be  dismissed  as  shrill,  cheap,  thin,  not 
worthy  a  great  artist,  still  unworthier  of  his  endeavour  to  immortalise 
them.  It  is  true  that  he  might  have  omitted  some  things  from  The 
Gentle  Art ,  though  the  names  and  ridicule  he  found  for  the  “  Enemies  ” 
will  stick  to  them  for  ever.  But  Whistler  thought  “  history  ”  would 
be  half  made  if  he  did  not  leave  on  record  both  the  provocation  he 
received  and  his  gaiety  of  retaliation.  When  the  battle  was  won  and 
recognition  came  he  wrote  to  Atlas  from  Paris  :  “  We  collect  ’  no 
more.”  Messieurs  les  Ennemis  had  no  longer  to  fear  for  their  “  scalps.” 
Oftener  than  not  the  wit  is  cruel  in  its  sting.  We  have  quoted  the 
“F  F  F  .  .  .  Fool  ”  letter.  There  are  others  more  bitter,  because 
gayer  on  the  surface,  to  Tom  Taylor,  for  instance  that  final  disposing 
of  him  : 

“  Why,  my  dear  old  Tom,  I  never  was  serious  with  you  even  when 
you  were  among  us.  Indeed,  I  killed  you  quite,  as  who  should 
say  without  seriousness,  ‘A  rat  !  A  rat  !  ’  you  know,  rather 

cursorily.” 

Whistler  had  the  power  of  expressing  himself  in  words  which  is 
rare  with  artists.  He  could  write,  he  had  style.  Literature,  no  less 
than  art,  was  to  him  a  “  dainty  goddess.”  He  worked  out  his  shortest 

1890]  293 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

letter  as  carefully  as  a  portrait  or  a  Nocturne,  until  all  trace  of  labour 
in  it  had  disappeared.  People,  awed  by  the  spectacle  of  Ruskin 
wallowing  amid  the  many  volumes  of  Modern  Painters  without  suc¬ 
ceeding  in  the  end  in  saying  what  he  wanted,  could  not  believe  that 
Whistler  was  saying  anything  that  mattered  when  he  said  in  a  few 
pages  what  he  wanted  with  no  sign  of  labour.  In  his  notes  to  Truth 
and  the  World,  as  in  The  Ten  O’  Clock,  he  reveals  his  knowledge  of  the 
Scriptures,  while  his  use  of  French  which  displeased  his  critics,  his  odd 
references,  his  unexpected  quotations,  are  placed  with  the  same  unerring 
instinct  as  the  Butterfly  on  his  canvas.  He  chose  the  right  word, 
he  made  the  division  of  paragraphs  effective,  punctuation  was  with  him 
an  art.  It  is  difficult  to  give  examples,  because  there  are  so  many. 
The  Ten  O'Clock  is  full  of  passages  that  show  him  at  his  best,  none 
finer  than  the  often-quoted  description  of  London  “  when  the  evening 
mist  clothes  the  riverside  with  poetry,  as  with  a  veil.”  The  Propo¬ 
sitions  and  The  Red  Rag  are  as  complete,  as  simple  and  direct  as  his 
prints.  The  book,  as  an  exposition  of  his  beliefs  and  doctrines,  ranks 
with  Reynolds’  Lectures ;  as  a  chronicle  of  an  artist’s  adventures,  it 
is  as  personal  and  characteristic  as  the  Memoirs  of  Cellini,  We  have 
been  criticised  for  devoting  so  much  space  to  Whistler’s  wit  and  his 
writings,  but  as  a  wit  and  writer  Whistler  will  live.  He  was  a  many- 
sided  man,  not  a  lop-sided  painter. 

The  period  of  the  preparation  and  publication  of  The  Gentle  Art 
was  one  of  unimportant  quarrels.  In  each  case  there  was  provocation. 
Of  two  or  three  so  much  was  made  at  the  time  that  they  cannot  be 
ignored.  One,  in  1888,  was  with  Mr.  Menpes,  who,  making  no  secret 
of  it,  has  recorded  its  various  stages  until  the  last,  when  the  Follower 
adopted  the  Master’s  decorations  and  arrangements  in  his  own  house. 
His  Home  of  Taste  was  paragraphed  in  the  papers,  and  Whistler  held 
him  up  to  the  world’s  ridicule  as  “  the  Kangaroo  of  his  country,  born 
with  a  pocket  and  putting  everything  into  it.”  The  affair  came  to 
a  crisis  not  long  after  the  Times  Parnell  disclosures,  and  Whistler  wrote 
to  him  :  “  You  will  blow  your  brains  out,  of  course.  Pigott  has  shown 
you  what  to  do  under  the  circumstances,  and  you  know  your  way  to 
Spain.  Good-bye.” 

Once  afterwards,  at  a  public  dinner,  Whistler  saw  Mr.  Menpes 
come  into  the  room  on  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy’s  arm:  “Ha  ha! 

294  [1890 


The  Turn  of  the  Tide 

McCarthy,”  he  laughed  as  they  passed  him.  “  Ha  ha  !  You  should 
be  careful.  You  know,  Damien  died.” 

In  1890  Augustus  Moore,  brother  of  George,  was  added  to  the  list 
of  “  Enemies.”  The  cause  was  an  offensive  reference  to  Godwin, 
Mrs.  Whistler’s  first  husband,  in  ‘The  Hawk,  an  insignificant  sheet 
Moore  edited.  Whistler,  knowing  that  he  would  find  him  at  any 
first-night,  went  to  Drury  Lane  for  the  autumn  production,  A  Million 
oj  Money,  and  in  the  foyer  hit  Moore  with  a  cane  across  the  face,  crying, 
“  Hawk  !  Hawk  !  ”  There  was  a  scrimmage,  and  Whistler,  as  the  man 
who  attacked,  was  requested  to  leave  the  house.  T.  he  whole  thing 
was  the  outcome  of  a  sense  of  honour,  a  feeling  of  chivalry,  which 
is  not  now  understood  in  England,  though  it  would  have  been  found 
magnificent  in  the  days  of  duels.  The  comic  papers  made  great  fun 
of  the  episode,  and  the  serious  ones  lamented  the  want  of  dignity  it 
showed.  No  one  understood  Whistler’s  loyalty  and  his  devotion  to 
the  woman  he  had  married. 


CHAPTER  XXXV:  THE  TURN  OF  THE  TIDE.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-ONE  AND  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-TWO. 

The  world  owed  him  a  living,  Whistler  said,  but  it  was  not  until  1891 
that  the  world  began  to  pay  the  debt  with  the  purchase  of  the  Carlyle 
for  Glasgow  and  the  Mother  for  the  Luxembourg. 

While  the  Carlyle  was  at  the  Glasgow  Institute  in  1888,  Mr.  E.  A. 
Walton  and  Sir  James  Guthrie  made  up  their  minds  to  try  to  keep 
it  for  the  city.  Since  the  attempt  to  secure  it  for  Edinburgh  the 
Glasgow  School  had  become  a  power,  and  as  they  proclaimed  them¬ 
selves  followers  of  Whistler,  it  was  only  right  they  should  do  everything 
to  retain  the  picture  in  Glasgow.  A  petition  wTas  presented  to  the 
Glasgow  Corporation,  signed  by  a  long  list  of  names  of  influential 
people,  which  greatly  pleased  Whistler,  for  they  included  Gilbert, 
Orchardson,  Millais,  Walton,  Guthrie,  and  many  others.  The  price 
asked  by  Whistler  was  a  thousand  guineas,  and  a  deputation  from  the 
Corporation  came  to  call  on  him  in  London.  Whistler  told  us  : 

“  I  received  them,  well,  you  know,  charmingly,  of  course.  And 
one  who  spoke  for  the  rest  asked  me  if  I  did  not  think  I  was  putting 
1891]  29S 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

a  large  price  on  the  picture— one  thousand  guineas.  And  I  said, 
Yes,  perhaps,  if  you  will  have  it  so  !  ’  And  he  said  that  it  seemed 
to  the  Council  excessive  ;  why,  the  figure  was  not  even  life-size.  And 
I  agreed.  ‘  But,  you  know,’  I  said,  ‘  few  men  are  life-size.’  And 
that  was  all.  It  was  an  official  occasion,  and  I  respected  it.  Then 
they  asked  me  to  think  over  the  matter  until  the  next  day,  and  they 
would  come  again.  And  they  came.  And  they  said,  ‘  Have  you 
thought  of  the  thousand  guineas  and  what  we  said  about  it,  Mr. 
Whistler  ?  And  I  said,  ‘  Why,  gentlemen,  why— well,  you  know, 
how  could  I  think  of  anything  but  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  again  ?  ’ 
And,  naturally,  being  gentlemen,  they  understood,  and  they  gave  me 
a  cheque  for  the  thousand  guineas.” 

What  Whistler  meant  by  “  life-size  ”  he  has  explained.  “  No 
man  alive  is  life-size  except  the  recruit  who  is  being  measured  as  he 
enters  the  regiment,  and  then  the  only  man  who  sees  him  life-size  is 
the  sergeant  who  measures  him,  and  all  that  he  sees  of  him  is  the  end 
of  his  nose  ;  when  he  is  able  to  see  his  toes,  the  man  ceases  to  be  life- 
size.” 

Before  the  Carlyle  went  to  Glasgow  Whistler  wished  to  show 
it  in  London,  where,  except  in  Queen  Square,  it  had  not  been  seen 
since  the  Grosvenor  Exhibition  of  1877,  and  it  was  exhibited  at  the 
Goupil  Gallery.  Mr.  D.  Croal  Thomson,  then  director  of  the  Gallery, 
saw  that  the  tide  was  turning,  and  suggested  offering  the  Mother  to 
the  Luxembourg.  In  Paris  there  was  a  sluggish  sort  of  curiosity  and 
the  beginning  of  a  sort  of  appreciation.  During  the  last  ten  years 
Whistler  had  shown  at  the  Salon  his  Lady  Meux ,  the  Mother ,  Carlyle , 
Miss  Alexander,  The  Yellow  Buskin,  M.  Duret,  Sarasate ,  and  in  1891 
his  Rosa  Gorder  was  in  the  new  Salon  ;  but  save  for  the  third-class 
medal  awarded  the  Mother  in  1883  his  pictures  received  no  official 
recognition,  and  while  several  scarcely  known  Americans  were  made 
full  members  of  the  Societe  N ationale  des  Beaux- Arts  he  was  at  first 
simply  an  Associate.  Many  of  his  smaller  works  had  been  seen  at 
different  times  in  the  Petit  Gallery.  At  Mr.  Croal  Thomson’s  sugges¬ 
tion  the  Mother  was  sent  to  Messrs.  Boussod  Valadon  in  Paris,  and 
Subscriptions  for  the  purchase  were  opened.  Before  any  amount 
worth  mentioning  was  subscribed  the  French  Government,  on  the 
initiative  of  M.  Georges  Ciemenceau  and  by  the  advice  of  M.  Roger 
296  [1891 


The  Turn  of  the  Tide 

Marx,  bought  it  for  the  nation.  M.  Bourgeois,  the  Minister  of  Fine 
Arts,  had  some  doubt  as  to  the  possibility  of  offering  for  so  fine  a 
masterpiece  the  small  price  that  the  nation  could  afford.  But  Whistler 
set  him  at  ease  on  this  point,  writing  to  him  that  it  was  for  the  Mother , 
of  all  his  pictures,  he  would  prefer  so  “  solemn  a  consecration,”  and 
that  he  was  proud  of  the  honour  France  had  shown  him.  The  price 
paid  was  four  thousand  francs.  Whistler  told  Mr.  Cole,  November  14, 
1891,  that  his  pleasure  was  in  the  fact  of  “  his  painting  of  his  mother 
being  ‘  unprecedentedly  ’  chosen  by  the  Minister  of  Beaux-Arts  for  the 
Luxembourg,”  and  France  that  same  year  bestowed  upon  him  an  honour 
he  valued  higher  than  almost  any  he  ever  received,  by  making  him 
Officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  But  the  choice  was  not  unprece¬ 
dented,  pictures  of  other  American  artists  having  already  been  purchased, 
while  the  honour  had  already  been  bestowed  upon  American  artists 
now  forgotten. 

The  event  was  celebrated  by  a  reception  at  the  Chelsea  Arts  Club 
on  the  evening  of  December  19,  Z891.  Whistler  was  presented  with 
a  parchment  of  greetings  signed  by  a  hundred  members  as  "  a  record 
of  their  high  appreciation  of  the  distinguished  honour  that  has  come 
to  him  by  the  placing  of  his  mother’s  portrait  in  the  national  collection 
of  France.” 

Whistler  said  in  reply  that  he  was  gratified  by  this  token  from  his 
brother  artists  :  “  It  is  right  at  such  a  time  of  peace,  after  the 

struggle,  to  bury  the  hatchet— in  the  side  of  the  enemy — and  leave  it 
there.  The  congratulations  usher  in  the  beginning  of  my  career,  for 
an  artist’s  career  always  begins  to-morrow.” 

He  promised  to  remain  for  long  one  of  the  Chelsea  artists,  a  promise 
Chelsea  artists  showed  no  desire  to  keep  him  to.  He  was  a  member 
of  the  Club  until  he  went  to  Paris.  When,  later,  Mr.  Lavery  proposed 
him  as  an  Honorary  Member,  there  was  not  enough  enthusiasm  to 
carry  the  motion.  And  when,  still  later,  it  was  further  proposed  that 
the  Chelsea  Arts  Club  should  officially  recognise  the  Whistler  Memorial 
they  refused,  and  the  comment  of  one  man  was,  “  What  had  an  English 
Club  to  do  with  a  memorial  by  a  Frenchman  to  a  Yankee  in  London  ?  ” 

Early  in  1892  Mr.  Croal  Thomson  arranged  with  Whistler  for 
an  exhibition  of  Nocturnes ,  Marines ,  and  Chevalet  Pieces  to  be  held 
at  the  Goupil  Gallery  in  London,  or,  as  Whistler  called  it,  his  “  heroic 
1892]  297 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

kick  in  Bond  Street.”  Mr.  Croal  Thomson  says  his  first  idea  was 
to  show  the  portraits  only.  But  he  soon  found  that  Whistler  wanted 
to  include  all  the  paintings  and  was  going  to  take  the  matter  in  hand, 
and  that  he  was  “  only  like  the  fly  on  the  wheel  ”  once  the  machinery 
was  set  in  motion. 

One  reason  of  the  success  of  the  exhibition,  which  surprised  not 
only  Mr.  Croal  Thomson  but  all  London,  was  Whistler’s  care  when 
selecting  his  pictures  to  secure  variety.  The  collection  was  a  magnificent 
refutation  of  everything  that  the  critics  had  been  saying  about  him 
for  years.  They  dismissed  his  pictures  as  sketches,  and  he  confronted 
them  with  The  Blue  Wave ,  Brown  and  Silver — Old  Battersea  Bridge, 
The  Music  Room ,  which  had  not  been  seen  in  London  since  the  early 
sixties.  They  objected  to  his  want  of  finish  and  slovenliness  in  detail, 
and  his  answer  was  the  Japanese  pictures,  full  of  an  elaboration  the 
Pre-Raphaelites  never  equalled,  and  finished  with  an  exquisiteness  of 
surface  they  never  attempted.  He  was  told  he  could  not  draw,  and  he 
produced  a  group  of  his  finest  portraits.  He  was  assured  he  had  no 
poetic  feeling,  no  imagination,  and  he  displayed  the  Nocturnes,  with 
the  factories  and  chimneys  transformed  into  a  fairyland  in  the  night. 
He  was  as  careful  in  arranging  the  manner  in  which  the  pictures  should 
be  presented.  His  letters  to  Mr.  Croal  Thomson  from  Paris,  where 
he  spent  the  greater  part  of  1892,  were  minute  in  his  directions  for 
cleaning  and  varnishing  the  paintings,  and  putting  them  into  new 
frames  of  his  design.  Indeed,  the  correspondence  on  the  subject, 
which  we  have  seen,  is  a  miracle  of  thoughtfulness,  energy,  and 
method. 

Mr.  Croal  Thomson  tells  us  :  “  Mr.  Whistler  laboured  almost 

night  and  day  :  he  wrote  letters  to  every  one  of  the  owners  of  his  works 
in  oil  asking  loans  of  the  pictures.  Some,  like  Mr.  Alexander  and  all 
the  Ionides  connection,  acceded  at  once,  but  others  made  delays,  and 
even  to  the  end  several  owners  declined  to  lend.  On  the  whole,  how¬ 
ever,  the  artist  was  well  supported  by  his  early  patrons,  and  the  result 
was  a  gathering  together  of  the  most  complete  collection  of  Mr. 
Whistler’s  best  works — forty-three  pictures  in  all. 

“  The  arrangement  of  the  pictures  was  entirely  Mr.  Whistler’s, 
for  although  he  wished  several  young  artists  to  come  to  the  Gallery 
the  evening  the  works  were  to  be  hung,  through  some  mischance 
298  [1892 


The  Turn  of  the  Tide 

they  did  not  arrive,  and  I  was  therefore  alone  with  Mr.  Whistler  and 
received  a  great  lesson  in  the  art  of  arranging  a  collection.” 

In  the  face  of  so  complete  a  series,  in  such  perfect  condition,  and 
so  well  hung,  criticism  was  silenced.  We  remember  the  Press  view, 
and  the  dismay  of  the  older  critics  who  hoped  for  another  “  crop  of 
little  jokes,”  and  the  triumph  of  the  younger  critics  who  knew  that 
Whistler  had  won.  The  papers,  daily,  weekly,  and  monthly,  almost 
unanimously  admitted  that  the  old  game  of  ridicule  was  played  out 
and  praised  the  exhibition  without  reserve.  The  rest,  headed  by 
Mr.  Wedmore,  have  since  been  trying  to  swallow  themselves.  Mr. 
Croal  Thomson  recalls  that  : 

“  Whistler  was  not  present  at  the  private  view.  He  knew  that 
many  people  would  expect  to  see  him  and  talk  enthusiastic  nonsense, 
and  he  rightly  decided  he  was  better  away,  and  I  was  left  to  receive 
the  visitors.  Some  hundreds  of  cards  of  invitation  were  issued,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  every  recipient  had  accepted.  Crowds  thronged  the 
galleries  all  day,  and  it  is  impossible  to  describe  the  excitement.  I  do 
not  know  how  it  fared  with  the  artist  and  his  wife  during  the  day, 
but  about  five  o’clock  in  the  evening  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Whistler  came  in, 
though  they  would  not  enter  the  exhibition  ;  they  remained  in  a 
curtained-off  portion  of  the  Gallery  near  the  entrance.  One  or  two 
of  their  most  intimate  friends  were  informed  by  me  of  the  presence  of 
the  painter,  and  a  small  reception  was  held,  for  a  little  while,  but, 
of  course,  by  that  time  the  battle  was  won,  and  there  were  only  con¬ 
gratulations  to  be  rendered  to  the  master.” 

J.  was  taken  into  the  little  curtained-off  room,  and  later  there 
was  a  triumphal  procession  to  the  Arts  Club.  Whistler  declared  that 
even  Academicians  had  been  seen  prowling  about  the  place  lost  in 
admiration,  that  it  needed  only  to  send  a  season  ticket  to  Ruskin  to 
make  the  situation  perfect,  and  that,  “  Well,  you  know,  they  were 
always  pearls  I  cast  before  them,  and  the  people  were  always— well, 
the  same  people.” 

It  is  said  Whistler  first  intended  to  print  the  catalogue  without 
comment  or  quotation  from  the  Press,  but  the  chance  to  expose  the 
critics  was  too  good,  and  previous  critical  verdicts  were  placed  under 
the  titles  of  the  pictures.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  copies  were  printed 
by  Mr.  Thomas  Way,  and  in  a  letter  to  Mr  .Way’s  manager,  Mr.  Morgan, 
1892]  299 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

he  calls  the  catalogue  “  perfect.”  But  he  also  points  out  that  there 
are  errors,  and  insists  that  by  no  accident  or  disaster  shall  any  of  the 
first  printed  batch  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  copies  get  about,  and  he 
further  says  that  he  proposes  to  come  to  the  printing  office  and  destroy 
them.  We  know  of  only  four  copies,  one  our  own,  of  this  unbound 
first  edition  that  have  been  preserved.  The  other  editions,  five  in 
all,  are  in  the  usual  brown  paper  covers.  As  an  instance  of  his  care, 
Mr.  William  Marchant  remembers  his  spending  an  afternoon  over 
the  arrangement  of  the  few  words  on  the  cover.  In  the  second  edition 
the  word  “  by  ”  disappeared  from  the  title-page  and  “  Kindly  Lent 
Their  Owners  ”  was  printed.  This  was  not  intentional  on  Whistler’s 
part,  for  we  possess  a  letter  in  which  he  asks  that  it  may  be  put  back 
at  once,  and  also  that  the  “  Moral  ”  at  the  end  of  the  catalogue, 
*  Modern  British  (!)  art  will  now  be  represented  in  the  National 
Gallery  of  the  Luxembourg  by  one  of  the  finest  paintings  due  to  the 
brush  of  an  English  artist  (!),”  should  be  credited  not  to  him,  but  to 
the  Illustrated  London  News.  Before  the  edition  was  exhausted  the 
Kindly  Lent  Their  Owners  ”  had  become  famous,  though  it  did 
not  appear  in  subsequent  editions.  But  it  reappeared  when  the 
catalogue  was  reprinted  in  The  Gentle  Art.  The  extracts  he  quoted 
were  cruel,  but  the  critics  had  been  cruel.  The  sub-title,  “  The  Voice 
of  a  People ,”  explains  his  object  in  publishing  them.  The  catalogue 
ended  with  the  quotation  from  the  Chronique  des  Beaux-  Arts  : 

“An  muses  du  Luxembourg,  vient  d'etre  place  de  M.  Whistler,  le 
splendide  Portrait  de  Mme.  Whistler  mere ,  une  oeuvre  destines  d  Veternite 
des  admirations,  une  oeuvre  sur  laquelle  la  consecration  des  siecles  semble 
avoir  mis  la  patine  d’un  Rembrandt,  d’un  Titien,  ou  d’un  Velasquez. .” 

This,  in  later  editions,  was  followed  by  the  “  Moral  ”  duly  credited 
to  the  Illustrated  London  News. 

Before  the  show  dosed  the  pictures  were  photographed,  and  twenty- 
four  were  afterwards  published  in  a  portfolio  called  Nocturnes,  Marines, 
and  Chevalet  Pieces ,  by  Messrs.  Goupil.  Whistler  designed  the  cover 
in  brown.  There  were  a  hundred  sets,  each  photograph  signed  by 
him,  published  at  six  guineas,  and  two  hundred  unsigned  at  four 
guineas. 

An  immediate  result  of  the  exhibition  was  that  sitters  came.  One 
of  the  first  was  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  who  gave  him  a  commission 

300  [1892 


PORTRAIT  OF  MISS  MAUD  WALLER 
THE  BLUE  GIRL 
OIL  (destroyed) 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  Mortimer  Menpes,  Esq. 
(See  t>age  211) 


The  Turn  of  the  Tide 

for  a  portrait  and  asked  him  and  Mrs.  Whistler  to  Blenheim  for 
the  autumn.  Whistler  wrote  the  Duke  one  of  his  “  charming  letters,” 
then  heard  of  his  sudden  death,  and  said  : 

“  Now  I  shall  never  know  whether  my  letter  killed  him,  or  whether 
he  died  before  he  got  it.  Well,  they  all  want  to  be  painted  because 
of  these  pictures,  but  why  wouldn’t  they  be  painted  years  ago 
when  I  wanted  to  paint  them,  and  could  have  painted  them  just  as 
well  ?  ” 

And  he  was  besieged  by  Americans,  Whistler  said,  who  were  deter¬ 
mined  “  to  pour  California  into  his  lap,”  a  determination  to  which 
he  had  no  objection.  His  “  pockets  should  always  be  full,  or  my 
golden  eggs  are  addled.”  He  thought  it  would  be  “  amazing  fun.  ” 
to  be  rich.  Once,  driving  with  Mr.  Starr,  he  said  : 

“  Starr,  I  have  not  dined,  as  you  know,  so  you  need  not  think  I 
say  this  in  any  but  a  cold  and  careful  spirit  :  it  is  better  to  live  on  bread 
and  cheese  and  paint  beautiful  things  than  to  live  like  Dives  and  paint 
pot-boilers.  But  a  painter  really  should  not  have  to  worry  about 
‘  various,’  you  know.  Poverty  may  induce  industry,  but  it  does  not 
produce  the  fine  flower  of  painting.  The  test  is  not  poverty,  it’s 
money.  Give  a  painter  money  and  see  what  he’ll  do  ;  if  he  does  not 
paint  his  work  is  well  lost  to  the  world.  If  I  had  had,  say,  three  thousand 
pounds  a  year,  what  beautiful  things  I  could  have  done.” 

No  one  could  know  better  than  Mr.  Croal  Thomson  how  complete 
was  this  success : 

“  I  do  not  think  I  am  exaggerating  when  I  say  that  the  exhibition 
marked  a  revolution  in  the  public  feeling  towards  Whistler.  His 
artistic  powers  were  hitherto  disputed  on  every  hand,  but  when  it 
was  possible  for  lovers  of  art  to  see  for  themselves  what  the  painter  had 
accomplished  the  whole  position  was  changed.  I  will  be  pardoned, 
I  hope,  in  stating  that  whereas  up  to  that  time  the  pictures  of  Mr. 
Whistler  commanded  only  a  small  sum  of  money,  after  the  exhibition 
a  great  number  of  connoisseurs  desired  to  acquire  his  works,  and  there¬ 
fore  their  money  value  immediately  increased. 

“  In  the  Goupil  collection  all  the  pictures  were  contributed  by 
private  owners,  and  none  were  offered  for  sale.  I  may  say  in  passing 
that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  crowds  of  visitors  were  so  great  that  no 
transaction  of  any  serious  kind  was  carried  through  in  the  Gallery 
1892]  301 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

between  the  hanging  of  the  pictures  and  their  dispersal — that  is,  for 
nearly  five  weeks  there  was  practically  no  record  of  business. 

“  But  the  exhibition  altered  all  this,  and  it  is  revealing  no  secrets 
to  say  that  within  a  year  after  the  exhibition  was  closed  I  had  aided 
in  the  transfer  of  more  than  one-half  of  the  pictures  from  their  first 
owners.  Mr.  Whistler,  to  whom  I  always  referred  before  concluding 
any  transaction,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  hardly  a  holder 
of  his  pictures  in  England  but  who  would  sell  when  tempted  by  a  large 
price.  It  may  be  that  these  owners  had  become  affected  by  the  con¬ 
tinual  misunderstanding  and  abuse  of  Mr.  Whistler’s  works,  and  that  when 
they  were  offered  double  or  three  times  the  sum  for  which  they  had 
their  pictures  insured  they  thought  they  had  better  take  advantage 
of  the  enthusiasm  of  the  moment.  They  did  not  realise  that  this 
enthusiasm  would  continue  to  enlarge,  and  that  what  seemed  to  them 
as  original  purchasers  of  the  pictures  to  be  a  great  price  is  only  about 
one-fourth  of  their  present  money  value. 

“  It  was  the  artist’s  wish  that  a  similar  exhibition  should  be  held 
in  Paris,  but  the  project  fell  through,  and  from  more  recent  experience 
it  would  appear  as  if  the  London  public,  sometimes  so  severely  scoffed 
at  by  Mr.  Whistler,  was  really  more  appreciative  than  the  Parisian 
public,  and,  therefore,  perhaps  after  all  more  intelligent.” 

Whistler  sold  The  Falling  Rocket  for  eight  hundred  guineas,  and 
wished  that  Ruskin  could  know  that  it  had  been  valued  at  “  four  pots 
of  paint.”  The  Leyland  sale,  May  28,  1892,  brought  the  Princpsse 
du  Pays  de  la  Porcelains  and  smaller  works  into  the  auction-room, 
and,  though  the  Princesse  fetched  only  four  hundred  and  twenty 
guineas,  this  was  four  times  as  much  as  Whistler  received.  What 
would  he  have  said  to  the  five  thousand  Mr.  Freer  paid  for  it  within 
a  year  of  his  death  ?  The  sixty  or  eighty  pounds  Mr.  Leathart  paid 
Whistler  for  the  Lange  Leizen  increased  to  six  or  eight  hundred  when 
he  sold  it.  Mr.  lonides  had  bought  Sea  and  Rain  for  twenty  or  thirty 
pounds,  and  now  asked  three  hundred.  Fifty  pounds,  the  price  of 
the  Blue  Wave  when  Mr.  Gerald  Potter  had  it  from  Whistler,  multi¬ 
plied  to  a  thousand  when  it  was  his  turn  to  dispose  of  it.  Fourteen 
hundred  pounds  was  given  by  Mr.  Studd  for  The  Little  White  Girl 
and  a  Nocturne,  the  two  having  cost  Mr.  Potter  about  one  hundred 
and  eighty  pounds,  and  we  have  been  told  that  Mr.  Studd  was  recently 
302  [1892 


The  Turn  of  the  Tide 

offered  six  thousand  pounds  for  The  Little  White  Girl  alone.  Whistler 
resented  it  when  he  found  that  fortunes  were  being  made  “  at  his 
expense  ”  by  so-called  friends,  and  he  complained  that  they  were 
turning  his  reputation  into  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence,  travelling 
over  Europe  and  holiday-making  on  the  profits.  He  suggested  that  a 
work  of  art,  when  sold,  should  still  remain  the  artist  s  property  ,  that 
it  was  only  “lent  its  owner.”  It  was  now  his  frequent  demand  to 
owners  and  condition  to  purchasers  that  his  pictures  should  be  available 
for  exhibition  when  and  where  and  as  often  as  he  pleased.  This  is 
illustrated  in  the  following  letter  which  Mr.  M.  S.  Theobald,  K.C., 
writes  us  : 

“  .  .  .  About  1870  I  began  to  get  such  of  his  etchings  as  I  could, 
and  somewhere  early  in  the  eighties  I  became  the  fortunate  possessor 
of  some  thirty  or  forty  drawings  and  pastels  through  the  Dowdeswells. 
Whistler  became  aware  of  my  ownership  of  these,  and  they  sometimes 
brought  him  to  my  house,  which  was  then  in  Westbourne  Square. 
The  pictures,  owing  to  stress  of  space,  hung  mostly  on  the  staircase, 
and  Whistler  would  stand  in  rapt  admiration  before  them,  with  occa¬ 
sional  ejaculations  of  ‘  how  lovely,’  ‘  how  divine,’  and  so  on.  On  one 
of  these  occasions  he  asked  my  wife  if  she  had  had  her  portrait  taken. 

‘  But  of  course  not,’  he  added,  £  as  I  have  not  painted  you.’ 

“  My  intercourse  with  the  Master  was  limited  to  occasions  when 
he  wanted  to  borrow  the  pictures.  His  manner  of  proceeding  was 
somewhat  abrupt.  Some  morning  a  person  would  appear  in  a  four- 
wheel  cab  and  present  Whistler’s  card,  on  which  was  written,  ‘  Please 
let  bearer  have  fourteen  of  my  pictures.’  Sometimes,  but  not  often, 
there  was  a  preliminary  warning  from  Whistler  himself.  But  though 
the  pictures  went  easily,  it  was  a  labour  of  Hercules  to  retrieve  them. 
Once  when  I  went  to  fetch  them  at  his  studio  by  appointment,  after 
a  previous  effort,  also  by  appointment,  which  was  not  kept,  I  found 
the  studio  locked,  but  after  a  search  among  the  neighbours  I  got  the 
key,  and  then  I  found  some  two  or  three  hundred  pictures  stacked 
round  the  room  buried  in  the  dust  of  ages.  Whistler  loved  his  pictures 
but  he  certainly  took  no  care  of  them.  On  that  occasion  I  remember 
I  took  away  by  mistake  in  exchange  for  one  of  my  pictures,  a  Nocturne 
that  did  not  belong  to  me,  though  it  was  very  like  one  of  mine.  You 
can  imagine  the  Master’s  winged  words  when  he  found  this  out.  I 
1892]  303 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

could  only  cry  mea  culpa  and  bow  my  head  before  the  storm.  It  was 
the  risk  to  which  I  feared  the  pictures  were  exposed  which  made  me 
harden  my  heart.” 

Whistler  was  as  anxious  to  keep  his  pictures  out  of  exhibitions 
when  for  some  reason  he  did  not  care  to  have  them  shown.  The  large 
• Three  Girls  ( ‘Three  Figures ,  Pink  and  Grey ,  in  the  London  Memorial 
Exhibition)  was  at  Messrs.  Dowdeswell’s  in  the  summer  of  1891.  He 
had  before  this  tried  to  get  possession  of  it  in  order  that  he  might  destroy 
it,  and  he  had  offered  to  paint  the  portrait  of  the  owner  and  his  wife 
in  exchange.  His  offer  was  refused,  and,  while  the  picture  was  at 
Messrs.  Dowdeswell’s,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette 
(July  28,  1891),  to  explain  that  it  was  a  painting  “thrown  aside  for 
destruction.”  An  impudent  answer  from  a  critic  led  to  a  more  explicit 
statement  of  his  views  on  the  subject  : 

“  All  along  have  I  carefully  destroyed  plates,  torn  up  proofs,  and 
burned  canvases  that  the  truth  of  the  quoted  word  shall  prevail,  and 
that  the  future  collector  shall  be  spared  the  mortification  of  cata¬ 
loguing  his  pet  mistakes.  To  destroy,  is  to  remain.” 

When  this  picture,  with  a  number  of  studies  for  it,  was  sent  to 
the  London  Memorial  Exhibition,  it  was  found  very  interesting  and 
it  was  hung,  and  we  think  it  fortunate  that  it  was  not  destroyed. 
But  had  the  Committee  known  it  was  the  picture  he  wished  destroyed 
it ’never  would  have  been  exhibited  by  the  International  Society. 

In  the  summer  of  1892  Whistler  was  invited  by  the  Duke  of  Argyll 
to  contribute  to  the  British  Section  at  the  World’s  Columbian  Exposition 
to  be  held  in  Chicago  the  following  year,  and  the  picture  mentioned 
for  the  purpose  was  the  Carlyle.  The  portrait  had  been  skied  in  a 
corner  the  previous  winter  at  the  Victorian  Exhibition  in  the  New 
Gallery,  of  which  Mr.  J.  W.  Beck  was  Secretary,  as  he  was  now  of  the 
Fine  Arts  Committee  for  Chicago.  Whistler  wrote  to  Mr.  Beck,  send¬ 
ing  his  “  distinguished  consideration  to  the  Duke  and  the  President” 
(Leighton)  with  the  assurance  “  that  I  have  an  undefined  sense  of 
something  ominously  flattering  occurring,  but  that  no  previous  desire 
on  his  part  ever  to  deal  with  work  of  mine  has  prepared  me  with  the 
proper  form  of  acknowledgment.  No,  no,  Mr.  Beck  !  Once  hung, 
twice  shy  !  ” 

When  the  letter  was  sent  to  the  papers  and  printers  made  “  sky  ” 

304  [1892 


THE  YELLOW  BUSKIN 
ARRANGEMENT  IN  BLACK 

OIL 

In  the  Wilstach  Collection,  Memorial  Hall,  Philadelphia 
{  See  page  213) 


The  Turn  of  the  Tide 

of  the  “shy  ”  Whistler  was  enchanted.  Mr.  Smalley  told  the  story  of 
the  invitation  in  the  Times,  after  Whistler’s  death,  under  the  impres¬ 
sion  that  he  had  been  invited  to  show  at  Burlington  House.  Ihat 
Whistler  never  was  invited  to  show  anything  there  we  know,  and  we 
have  the  further  testimony  of  Sir  Fred  Eaton,  Secretary  of  the  Academy, 
that  “  No  such  proposal  as  Mr.  Smalley  speaks  of  was  ever  made  to 
Mr.  Whistler,  and  it  is  difficult  to  understand  on  what  grounds  he 
made  such,  a  statement.” 

It  is  an  amusing  coincidence  that  this  would  seem  to  be  confirmed 
by  the  fate  of  a  letter  addressed  to  Whistler,  “  The  Academy, 
England,”  which,  after  having  gone  to  the  newspaper  of  that  name, 
was  next  sent  to  Burlington  House,  and,  finally,  reached  Whistler 
with  “  Not  known  at  the  R.A.,”  written  on  the  cover.  Here  was  one 
of  the  little  incidents  that  Whistler  called  “  the  droll  things  of  this 
pleasant  life,”  and  he  sent  the  cover  for  reproduction  to  the  Daily 
Mail  with  the  reflection  : 

“  In  these  days  of  doubtful  frequentation  it  is  my  rare  good  fortune 
to  be  able  to  send  you  an  unsolicited  official  and  final  certificate  of 

character.” 

Whistler  did  not  depend  upon  the  British  Section  at  the  Chicago 
Exposition.  Americans  made  up  for  the  official  blunders  of  1889. 
Professor  Halsey  C.  Ives,  chief  of  the  Art  Department,  wrote  letters 
that  Whistler  found  most  courteous,  and  everything  was  done  to 
secure  his  pictures  and  prints.  He  was  splendidly  represented  by 
The  Yellow  Buskin,  the  Princesse  du  Pays  de  la  Porcelains,  The  Fur 
Jacket,  among  paintings,  and  by  etchings  of  every  period.  The 
medal  given  him  was  the  first  official  honour  from  his  native  land, 
where  never  before  had  so  representative  a  collection  of  his  work  been 
seen. 

Towards  the  end  of  1892  the  appreciation  of  America  was  expressed 
in  another  form.  The  new  Boston  Library  was  being  built,  and  Me-ssrs. 
Me  Kim,  Meade,  and  White  were  the  architects.  It  was  determined 
that  the  interior  should  be  decorated  by  the  most  distinguished  American 
artists.  Mr.  Sargent  and  Mr.  Abbey  were  commissioned  to  do  part  of 
the  work,  and  they  joined  with  Mr.  McKim  and  St.  Gaudens  in  trying 
to  induce  Whistler  to  undertake  the  large  panel  at  the  top  of  the  stairs. 
He  made  notes  and  suggestions  for  the  design,  which,  he  told  us,  was 
1892]  u  305 


James  McNeill  Whistler 


to  be  a  great  peacock  ten  feet  high ;  but  the  work  was  put  off,  and,  in 
the  end,  nothing  came  of  the  first  opportunity  given  him  for  mural 
decoration  since  The  Peacock  Room. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI :  PARIS.  THE  YEARS  EIGHTEEN  NINETY 
TWO  AND  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-THREE. 


Whistler  went  to  live  in  Paris  again  in  1892.  Moving  from 
London  was  a  complicated  affair,  and,  during  several  months,  he  and 
Mrs.^  Whistler  and  his  sister-in-law,  Mrs.  Whibley,  were  continually 
running  backward  and  forward,  before  they  settled  in  the  Rue  du  Bac. 
We  saw  him  whenever  he  came  to  London  and  whenever  we  were  in 
Paris,  and,  as  we  were  there  often,  we  saw  much  of  him. 

A  group  of  artists  and  art  critics,  whose  appreciation  of  Whistler 
had  not  waited  for  the  turning  of  the  tide,  were  in  the  habit  of  going 
together  to  Paris  for  the  opening  of  the  Salon.  In  1892,  R.  A  M 
Stevenson,  Aubrey  Beardsley,  Henry  Harland,  D.  S.  McColl,  Charles 

.  urse,  Alexander  and  Robert  Ross,  among  others,  were  with  us, 
and  to  all  it  was  a  pleasure  to  find  Whistler  triumphing  as  he  had 
triumphed  earlier  in  the  spring  in  London.  His  pictures  at  the  Champ- 
de-Mars  were  the  most  talked  about  and  the  most  distinguished  in  an 
unusuaHy  good  Salon.  Many  came  straight  from  the  Goupil  Exhibition. 
Whistler  called  it  “  a  stupendous  success  all  along  the  line,”  and  said 
that,  coming  after  the  Goupil  “heroic  kick,”  it  made  everything 
complete  and  perfect.  He  was  pleased  also  with  the  fact  that  he  was 
elected  a  full  Societaire ,  and  this  year  a  member  of  the  jury. 

In  the  autumn,  ].,  returning  to  Paris  after  a  long  summer  in  the 
South  of  France,  found  Whistler  in  the  Hotel  du  Bon  Lafontaine,  a 
house,  Whistler  said,  full  of  bishops,  cardinals,  and  monsignori ,  and 
altogether  most  correct,  to  which  he  had  moved  from  the  Foyot, 
inhabited  by  Senators,  after  a  bomb  had  exploded  in  the  kitchen 
window.  J.  says  : 

“  He  was  not  too  comfortably  established,  in  one  or  two  small 
rooms.  He  was  full  of  the  apartment  in  the  Rue  du  Bac,  which  I 
was  taken  to  see,  though  there  was  nothing  to  see  but  workmen  and 
packing-boxes.  In  the  midst  of  the  moving,  he  was  working,  and  one 

3°6  [1892 


Paris 

day  I  found  him  in  his  bedroom  with  Mallarme,  whose  portrait  in 
lithography  he  was  drawing,  and  there  was  scarcely  room  for  three. 
This  portrait  is  the  frontispiece  to  Mallarme’s  Vers  et  Prose. 

“  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  seen  Whistler  working  on  a  litho¬ 
graph.  He  had  great  trouble  with  this  portrait,  which  he  did  more  than 
once,  not  altogether  because,  as  M.  Duret  says,  he  could  not  get  the 
head  right,  but  because  he  was  trying  experiments  with  paper.  He 
was  thoroughly  dissatisfied  with  the  mechanical  grained  paper  which 
he  had  used  for  the  Albermarle  and  the  Whirlwind  prints,  and  he  was 
then  afraid  of  trusting  to  the  post  the  paper  that  Way  was  sending  him. 
He  had  found  at  Belfont’s  or  Lemercier’s  some  thin  textureless  transfer 
paper,  thin  as  tissue  paper,  which  delighted  him,  though  it  was  difficult 
to  work  on.  When  he  was  doing  the  Mallarme,  he  put  the  paper  down 
on  a  roughish  book  cover.  He  liked  the  grain  the  cover  gave  him,  for 
it  was  not  mechanical,  and,  when  the  grain  seemed  to  repeat  itself, 
he  would  shift  the  drawing,  and  thus  get  a  new  surface.  I  do  not  know 
whether  he  used  this  thin  paper  to  any  extent,  but  he  said  he  found 
it  delightiul,  if  difficult,  to  work  on.  He  used  that  afternoon  a  tiny 
bit  of  lithographic  chalk,  holding  it  in  his  fingers,  and  not  in  a  crayon- 
holder  as  lithographers  do. 

“  The  next  day,  he  took  me  to  the  printers,  Belfont’s  and  Lemercier’s, 
where  he  introduced  me  to  M.  Duchatel  and  M.  Marty,  who  was 
preparing  Zd Estumpe  Ongmaley  devoting  himself  to  the  revival  of 
artistic  lithography  in  France.  As  I  remember,  the  talk  was  technical, 
when  not  of  the  wonders  of  the  apartment  in  the  Rue  du  Bac— where 
‘  Peace  threatens  to  take  up  her  abode  in  the  garden  of  our  pretty 
pavilion,’  Mr.  Starr  quotes  Whistler  as  saying— and  the  studio  in 
the  Rue  Notre-Dame-des-Champs,  which  I  did  not  see  until  later 
on.  He  was  also  planning  his  colour  lithographs,  and  he  explained 
to  me  his  methods,  though  very  few  colour-prints  were  made  until 
the  next  year.  He  also  told  me  what  he  thought  of  printing  etchings 
in  colour— that  it  was  abominable,  vulgar,  and  stupid.  Good  black 
or  brown  ink,  op  good  old  paper,  had  been  good  enough  for  Rembrandt, 
it  was  good  enough  for  him,  and  it  ought  to  be  good  enough  in  the 
future  for  the  few  people  who  care  about  etching.  To-day,  when 
the  world  is  swamped  with  the  childish  print  in  colour  and  the 
preposterous  big  copper  plate,  it  may  be  well  to  remember  Whistler  s 
1892]  3 °7 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

words.  .  His  reason  for  rejecting  the  etching  in  colour  is  as  simple 
and  rational  as  his  reason  for  making  the  lithograph  in  colour.  Litho¬ 
graphy  is  a  method  of  surface  printing  ;  the  colour,  rolled  on  to  the 
surface  of  the  stone,  is  merely  rubbed  on  to,  and  scraped  off  on,  the 
paper.  In  etching  or  engraving,  the  colour  is  first  hammered  into 
the  engraved  plate  with  a  dabber  and  then  forced  out  by  excessive 
pressure,  fatal  to  any  but  the  strongest  or  purest  of  blacks  and  browns  ; 
and  colours,  whether  printed  from  one  plate  or  a  dozen,  must  have 
the  freshness,  the  quality,  squeezed  out  of  them.” 

He  was  back  in  London  at  the  end  of  December  (1892)  eating  his 
Christmas  dinner  with  his  future  brother-in-law.  He  stayed  only  a 
few  days,  but  long  enough  to  arrange  to  show  Lady  Meux :  White  and 
Black  in  the  first  exhibition  of  the  Portrait  Painters  at  the  Grafton 
Gallery,  early  in  1893,  and  a  number  of  his  Venice  etchings  with  the 
destroyed  plates  at  the  Fine  Art  Society’s. 

.  We  were  aSain  in  Paris  for  the  Salon  of  1893,  and  found  Whistler 
hvmg  in  the  Rue  du  Bac.  Beardsley,  MacColl,  and  ‘  Bob  ’  Stevenson 
were  with  us.  MacColl  and  J.  went  to  see  Whistler  in  the  new  studio. 
It  was  at  the  top  of  one  of  the  highest  buildings  in  the  Rue  Notre- 
Dame-des-Champs,  No.  86.  As  the  concierge  said,  in  directing  visitors, 
On  ne  pent  pas  aller  plus  loin  que  M.  Vistlaire  !  ’  The  climb  always 
seemed  to  me  endless,  and  must  have  done  much  harm  to  Whistler’s 
weak  heart,  though  benches  were  placed  on  some  of  the  landings  where, 
if  he  had  time,  he  could  rest.  When  we  got  to  the  sixth  storey  MacColl 
knocked.  There  was  a  rapid  movement  across  the  floor,  and  the  door 
was  opened  a  little.  Whistler  held  his  palette  and  brushes  between 
himself  and  us,  and  there  were  excuses  of  models  and  work.  But 
MacColl  felt  the  brushes,  and  they  were  dry,  and  so  we  got  in. 

The  studio  was  a  big,  bare  room,  the  biggest  studio  Whistler  ever 
had.  A  simple  tone  of  rose  on  the  walls,  a  lounge,  a  few  chairs,  a  white- 
wood  cabinet  for  the  little  drawings  and  prints  and  pastels ;  the  blue 
screen  with  the  river,  Chelsea  church,  and  the  gold  moon  ;  two  or  three 
easels,  nothing  on  them  ;  rows  and  rows  of  canvases  on  the  floor  with 
their  faces  to  the  wall  ;  in  the  further  corner  a  printing  press—  rather, 
a  printing  shop— with  inks  and  papers  on  shelves  ;  a  little  gallery  above, 
a  room  or  two  opening  off  ;  a  model’s  dressing-room  under  it,  and  in 
front,  when  you  turned,  the  great  studio  window,  with  all  Paris  toward 
3°8  [1893 


•  PORTRAIT  OF  M.  THEODORE  DURET 
ARRANGEMENT  IN  FLESH-COLOUR  AND  PINK 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  M.  Theodore  Duret 
( See  bage  215  ) 


Paris 


the  Pantheon  over  the  Luxembourg  gardens.  There  was  another 
little  room  or  entrance-hall  at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  and  opposite  another, 
a  kitchen.  On  the  front  was  a  balcony  with  flowers. 

"  Carmen,  his  model,  was  there,  and  while  he  showed  us  some  of 
his  work  she  got  breakfast,  and  we  stayed  a  good  part  of  the  day.  Mrs. 
Whistler  came  up  later.  I  think  she  breakfasted  with  us.  I  have  no 
recollection  of  what  he  talked  about.  But  I  am  sure  it  was  of  what 
they  had  been  saying  in  London,  of  what  they  were  saying  in  Paris 
of  what  he  was  doing.  That  is  what  it  always  was.  We  were  all  asked 
to  lunch  the  following  Sunday  at  the  house. 

The  apartment,  No.  no  Rue  du  Bac,  was  on  the  right-hand  side, 
just  before  you  reached  the  Bon  Marche ,  going  up  the  street,  from  the 
river.  You  went  through  a  big  fiorte  cochere  by  the  concierge’s  box,  down 
a  long,  covered  tunnel,  then  between  high  walls,  until  you  came  to  a 
courtyard  with  several  doors,  a  bit  of  an  old  frieze  in  one  place  and 
a  drinking- fountain.  Whistler’s  door  was  painted  blue,  with  a  brass 
knocker.  I  do  not  suppose  that  then  there  was  another  like  it  in  Paris. 
Inside  was  a  little  landing  with  three  or  four  steps  down  to  the  floor,  a 
few  feet  lower  than  the  courtyard.  This  room  contained  nothing,  or 
almost  nothing,  but  some  trunks  (which,  as  in  his  other  houses,  gave  the 
appearance  of  his  having  just  moved  in,  or  being  just  about  to  start 
on  a  journey)  and  a  settee,  always  covered  with  a  profusion  of  hats  and 
coats.  Opposite  the  entrance  a  big  door  opened  into  a  spacious  room, 
decorated  in  simple,  flat  tones  of  blue,  with  wdiite  doors  and  windows, 
furnished  with  a  few  Empire  chairs  and  a  couch,  a  grand  piano,  and  a 
table  which,  like  the  blue  matting-covered  floor,  was  littered  with  news¬ 
papers.  Once  in  a  while  there  was  a  picture  of  his  on  the  wall.  For 
some  time,  the  V enus  hung  or  stood  about.  There  were  doors  to  the 
right  and  left,  and  on  the  far  side,  a  glass  door  opened  on  a  large 
garden,  a  real  bit  of  country  in  Paris.  It  stretched  away  in  dense 
undergrowth  to  several  huge  trees.  Later,  over  the  door,  there 
was  a  trellis  designed  by  Mrs.  Whistler,  and  there  were  flowers  every¬ 
where.  ‘  In  his  roses  he  buried  his  troubles,’  Mr.  Wuerpel  writes  of 
the  garden,  and  there  were  many  birds,  among  them,  at  one  time,  an 
awful  mocking-bird,  at  another  a  white  parrot  which  finally  escaped, 
and,  in  a  temper,  climbed  up  a  tree  where  no  one  could  get  it,  and  starved 
itself  to  death  to  Whistler’s  grief.  At  the  bottom  of  the  garden 
1893]  309 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

were  seats.  The  dining-room  was  to  the  right  of  the  drawing-room. 
It  was  equally  simple  in  blue,  only  there  was  blue  and  white  china 
in  a  cupboard  and  a  big  dining-table,  round  which  were  more  Empire 
chairs  and  in  the  centre  a  large,  low  blue  and  white  porcelain  stand, 
on  it  big  bowls  of  flowers,  over  it,  hanging  from  the  ceiling,  a  huge 
Japanese  something  like  a  birdcage. 

“  From  Paris,  in  May,  I  wrent  down  to  Caen  and  Coutances,  coming 
back  a  few  weeks  later.  Beardsley  was  still  in  Paris,  or  had  returned,  and 
we  were  both  stopping  at  the  Hotel  de  Portugal  et  de  l’Univers,  then 
known  to  every  art  student.  Wagner  was  being  played  at  the  Opera, 
almost  for  the  first  time.  Paris  was  disturbed,  there  were  demonstra¬ 
tions  against  Wagner,  really  against  Germany.  We  went,  Beardsley 
wild  about  Wagner  and  doing,  I  think,  the  drawing  of  The  Wagnerites. 
He  had  come  over  to  get  backgrounds  in  the  rose  arbours  and  the  dense 
alleys  of  the  Luxembourg  gardens,  where  Whistler  had  made  his  litho¬ 
graphs.  Coming  away  from  the  Opera,  we  went  across  to  the  Cafe  de  la 
Paix  at  midnight.  The  first  person  we  saw  was  Whistler.  He  was  with 
some  people,  but  they  left  soon,  and  we  joined  him.  Beardsley  also 
left  almost  at  once,  but  not  before  Whistler  had  asked  us  to  come  the 
next  Sunday  afternoon  to  the  Rue  du  Bac.  Then,  for  the  first  time, 
I  learned  what  he  thought  of  ‘  aestheticism  ’  and  ‘  decadence.’ 

“  ‘  Why  do  you  get  mixed  up  with  such  things  ?  Look  at  him  ! 
He’s  just  like  his  drawings,  he’s  all  hairs  and  peacock’s  plumes — hairs 
on  his  head,  hairs  on  his  fingers  ends,  hairs  in  his  ears,  hairs  on  his  toes. 
And  what  shoes  he  wears — hairs  growing  out  of  them  !  ’ 

“  I  said,  ‘  Why  did  you  ask  him  to  the  Rue  du  Bac  ?  ’  ‘  Oh — well 

■ — well — well  !  ’  And  then  it  was  late,  or  early,  and  the  last  thing  was, 

‘  Well,  you’ll  come  and  bring  him  too.’ 

“  Years  later,  in  Buckingham  Street,  Whistler  met  Beardsley,  and 
got  to  like  not  only  him,  as  everybody  did,  but  his  work.  One  night 
when  Whistler  was  with  us,  Beardsley  turned  up,  as  always  when  he  went 
to  see  anyone,  with  his  portfolio  of  his  latest  work  under  his  arm.  This 
time  it  held  the  illustrations  for  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  which  he  had  just 
made.  Whistler,  who  always  saw  everything  that  was  being  done,  had 
seen  the  Yellow  Book,  started  in  1894,  and  he  disliked  it  as  much  as 
he  then  disliked  Beardsley,  who  was  the  art  editor ;  he  had  also 
seen  the  illustrations  to  Salome ,  disliking  them  too,  probably  because 
310  [J8^3 


Paris 


of  Oscar  Wilde  ;  he  knew  many  of  the  other  drawings,  one  of  which, 
whether  intentionally  or  unintentionally,  was  more  or  less  a  reminiscence 
of  Mrs.  Whistler,  and  he  no  doubt  knew  that  Beardsley  had  made  a 
caricature  of  him  which  a  Follower  carefully  left  in  a  cab.  When 
Beardsley  opened  the  portfolio  and  began  to  show  us  the  Rape  of  the 
Lock ,  Whistler  looked  at  them  first  indifferently,  then  with  interest, 
then  with  delight.  And  then  he  said  slowly,  *  Aubrey,  I  have  made  a 
very  great  mistake — you  are  a  very  great  artist.’  And  the  boy  burst 
out  crying.  All  Whistler  could  say,  when  he  could  say  anything,  was 
‘  I  mean  it  —  I  mean  it — I  mean  it.’ 

“  On  the  following  Sunday  Beardsley  and  I  went  to  the  Rue  du  Bac, 
Beardsley  in  a  little  straw  hat  like  Whistler’s.  Whistler  was  in  the 
garden  and  there  were  many  Americans,  and  Arsene  Alexandre  and 
Mallarme,  some  people  from  the  British  Embassy,  and  presently  Mr. 
Jacomb  Hood  came,  bringing  an  Honourable  Amateur,  who  asked  the 
Whistlers,  Beardsley,  and  myself  to  dinner  at  one  of  the  cafes  in  the 
Champs-Elysees.  As  we  left  the  Rue  du  Bac,  Whistler  whispered  to  me, 
‘  Those  hairs — hairs  everywhere  !  ’  I  said  to  him,  ‘  But  you  were  very 
nice  and,  of  course,  you’ll  come  to  dinner.’  And,  of  course,  he  did  not. 

“  I  was  working  in  Paris,  making  drawings  and  etchings  of  Notre- 
Dame.  I  was  in  one  of  the  high  old  houses  of  lodgings  and  studios, 
with  cabmen’s  cafes  and  restaurants  under  them,  on  the  Quai  des  Grands 
Augustins.  I  had  gone  there  because  of  the  view  of  the  Cathedral. 
Most  of  the  time  I  was  at  work  up  among  the  Devils  of  Notre-Dame, 
using  one  of  the  towers  as  a  studio  by  permission  of  the  Government 
and  the  Cardinal-Archbishop.  One  morning — it  was  in  June  —  I 
heard  the  puffing  and  groaning  of  someone  climbing  slowly  the 
endless  winding  staircase,  and  the  next  thing  I  saw  was  Whistler’s  head 
on  the  stairs.  When  he  got  his  breath  and  I  had  got  over  my  astonish¬ 
ment,  I  began  to  ask  why  he  had  come,  or  he  began  to  explain  the  reason. 
He  had  learned  where  I  was  staying,  and  he  said  he  had  been  to  the 
hotel,  which  was,  well  !  I  think  it  reminded  him  of  his  days  au  sixieme , 
for  that  was  the  floor  I  was  on.  He  left  a  note  written  on  the  buvette 
paper,  in  which  he  said,  ‘  Jolly  the  place  seems  to  be  !  ’  After  he  had 
climbed  up  to  my  rooms,  the  patron  told  him  where  he  possibly  would 
find  me,  and  then  the  people  at  the  foot  of  the  tower  said  I  was  up 
above. 

J893]  jl, 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

“  He  told  me  why  he  had  come  up.  He  was  working  on  a  series  of 
etchings  of  Paris.  Some  were  just  begun,  others  ready  to  bite,  but  a 
number  ought  to  be  printed,  and  would  I  help  him  ?  I  was  pleased, 
and  I  said  I  would.  I  took  him  about  among  the  strange  creatures 
that  haunt  the  place,  introduced  him  to  the  old  keeper  with  his  grisly 
tales  of  suicides  and  of  sticking  to  the  tower  through  the  Commune, 
even  when  the  church  was  on  fire,  and  showed  him  the  awful  bell  that, 
at  noon,  suddenly  crashed  in  our  ears,  the  uncanny  cat  that  perched 
on  crockets  and  gargoyles,  tried  to  catch  sparrows  with  nothing  below 
her,  and  made  from  one  parapet  to  another  flying  cuts  over  space  when 
visitors  came  up.  But  he  did  not  like  it,  and  was  not  happy  until 
we  were  seated  in  the  back  room  of  a  restaurant  across  the  street. 
He  talked  about  the  printing,  saying  that  I  could  help  him,  and  he  could 
teach  me. 

“  Next  morning  I  was  at  the  Rue  du  Bac  at  nine.  After  I  had 
waited  for  what  seemed  hours,  and  had  breakfasted  with  him  and  Mrs. 
Whistler  and  we  had  a  cigarette  in  the  garden,  where  there  was  an 
American  rocking-chair  for  him— well,  after  this  it  was  too  late  to  go 
to  the  studio.  He  brought  out  some  of  the  plates  which  he  had  been 
working  on— the  plates  of  little  shops  in  the  near  streets— and  we  looked 
at  them,  and  that  was  all.  So  it  went  on  the  next  day,  and  the  next, 
until  on  the  third  or  fourth  things  came  to  a  head,  and  I  told  him  that 
charming  as  this  life  was,  either  we  must  print  or  I  must  go  back  to  my 
drawing.  In  five  minutes  we  were  in  a  cab  on  our  way  to  the  studio. 
He  understood  that,  much  as  I  admired  his  work  and  appreciated  him, 
I  could  not  afford  to  pay  for  this  appreciation  and  admiration  with 
my  time.  From  the  moment  this  was  plain  between  us,  there  was  no 
interruption  to  our  friendship  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

“We  set  to  work.  He  peeled  down  to  his  undershirt  with  short 
sleeves,  and  I  saw  in  his  muscles  one  reason  why  he  was  never  tired. 
He  put  on  an  apron.  The  plates,  only  slightly  heated,  if  heated  at  all, 
were  inked  and  wiped,  sometimes  with  his  hand,  at  others  with  a  rag, 
till  nearly  clean,  though  a  good  tone  was  left.  He  painted  the  proofs 
on  the  plate  with  his  hand.  I  got  the  paper  ready  on  the  press  and 
pulled  the  proof,  he  inking  and  I  pulling  all  the  afternoon.  As  each 
proof  came  off  the  press,  he  looked  at  it,  not  satisfied,  for  they  were  all 
weak,  and  saying  ‘  we’ll  keep  it  as  the  first  proof  and  it  will  be  worth 
312  [1893 


PORTRAIT  OF  PABLO  SARASATE 
ARRANGEMENT  IN  BLACK 

OIL 

In  the  Carnegie  Institute,  Pittsburgh 

[See  page  221) 


Paris 

something  some  day.5  Then  he  put  the  prints  between  sheets  of 
blotting-paper,  and  that  night  or  the  next,  after  dinner,  trimmed  them 
with  scissors  and  put  them  back  between  the  folded  sheets  of  blotting 
paper  which  were  thrown  on  the  table  and  on  the  floor.  Between  the 
sheets  the  proofs  dried  naturally  and  were  not  squashed  flat. 

“  The  printing  went  on  for  several  days,  he  getting  more  and  more 
dissatisfied,  until  I  found  an  old  man,  Lamour,  at  the  top  of  an  old 
house  in  the  Rue  de  la  Harpe,  who  could  reground  the  plates.  But 
Whistler  did  not  rebite  them  and  never  touched  them  until  long  after 
in  England. 

“  A  number  of  plates  had  not  been  bitten  and  one  hot  Sunday 
afternoon  he  brought  them  into  the  garden  at  the  Rue  du  Bac.  A  chair 
was  placed  under  the  trees  and  on  it  a  wash-basin  into  which  each  plate 
was  put.  Instead  of  pouring  the  diluted  acid  all  over  the  plate  in  the 
usual  fashion  drops  were  taken  up  from  the  bottle  on  a  feather,  and  the 
plate  painted  with  acid.  The  acid  was  coaxed,  or  rather  used  as  one 
would  use  water-colour,  dragged  and  washed  about.  Depth  and 
strength  were  got  by  leaving  a  drop  of  acid  on  the  lines  where  they  were 
needed.  There  was  a  little  stopping-out  of  passages  where  greater 
delicacy  was  required  ;  when  there  was  any,  the  stopping-out  varnish 
was  thinned  with  turpentine,  and  Whistler,  with  a  camePs-hair  brush, 
painted  over  the  parts  that  did  not  need  further  biting.  To  me,  it 
was  a  revelation.  Sometimes  he  drew  on  the  plate.  Instead  of  the 
huge  crowbar  used  by  most  etchers  he  worked  with  a  perfectly  balanced, 
beautifully  designed  little  needle  three  or  four  inches  long,  made  for 
him  by  an  instrument-maker  in  Paris.  He  always  carried  several  in  a 
little  silver  box.  The  ground  on  all  the  plates  was  bad  and  came  off, 
and  the  proofs  he  pulled  afterwards  in  the  studio  were  not  at  all  what 
he  wanted.  These  were  almost  the  last  plates  he  etched. 

“  He  was  not  painting  very  much,  few  people  came  to  the  studio, 
and  he  went  out  little.  No  one  was  in  the  Rue  du  Bac  but  Mrs.  Whistler 
for  a  while,  and  there  were  complications  with  the  servants  and  others— 
how  people  who  kept  such  hours,  or  no  hours,  could  keep  servants 
would  have  been  a  mystery  had  not  servants  worshipped  him.  Almost 
daily  the  petit  bleu  asking  me  to  dinner  would  come  to  me.  Or  Whistler 
would  appear  in  the  morning,  if  I  had  not  been  to  him  the  day  before. 
In  those  early  June  days  I  seldom  met  anyone  at  the  house  and  we  never 
1893]  3 1 3 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

dressed  for  dinner,  possibly  because  I  had  no  dress  clothes  with  me  ;  he 
would  insist  on  my  coming,  telling  me  not  to  mind  the  stains  or  the 
inkspots  !  One  evening  in  the  garden  with  them  I  found  a  little  man, 
a  thorough  Englishman  in  big  spectacles,  with  a  curious  sniff,  who  was 
holding  a  hose  and  watering  the  plants.  He  was  introduced  to  me  as 
Mr.  Webb,  Whistler  s  solicitor,  though  in  the  process  we  came  near 
being  drenched  by  the  wobbling  hose.  It  was  that  evening  I  first  heard 
the  chant  of  the  missionary  brothers  from  over  the  great  wall.  A 
bell  sounded,  and  as  the  notes  died  away  a  wailing  chant  arose,  went 
on  for  a  little,  then  died  away  as  mysteriously  as  it  came.  Always, 
when  it  did  come,  it  hushed  us.  At  dinner  we  should  be  cosy  and 
jolly,  Whistler  had  said  in  asking  me,  and  we  were,  and  it  was  arranged 
that  we  should  go  the  next  day  to  Fontainebleau. 

They  called  for  me  at  the  hotel  in  the  morning.  We  drove  to 
the  Lyons  station,  Whistler,  his  wife,  Mr.  Webb,  and  I.  And  Whistler 
had  the  little  paint-box  which  always  went  with  him,  though  on  these 
occasions  it  was  the  rarest  thing  that  he  ever  did  anything,  and  we  got 
to  Fountainebleau.  We  lunched  in  a  garden.  We  didn’t  go  to  the 
palace,  but  drove  to  Barbizon,  stopping  at  Siron’s,  through  the  forest. 

I  don’t  think  the  views  or  the  trees  interested  him  at  all.  He  was 
quiet  all  the  way,  but  no  sooner  were  we  back  than  we  must  hunt  for 
‘  old  things  ’ :  ‘  here  was  a  palace  and  great  people  had  lived  here,  there 
might  be  silver,  there  might  be  blue  and  white,  though  really,  now, 
you  know,  you  can  find  better  blue  and  white,  and  cheaper  silver,  under 
the  noses  of  the  Britons  in  Wardour  Street  than  anywhere.’  We  did 
not  find  any  blue  and  white,  or  silver.  But  there  were  three  folio 
volumes  of  old  paper,  containing  a  collection  of  dried  leaves,  which  we 
bought  and  shared,  and  they  were  to  him  more  valuable  than  the  palace 
and  the  Millet  studio,  which  we  never  saw. 

“  was  late  when  we  got  back.  The  servants  had  gone  to  bed, 
and  Marguery’s  and  the  places  where  he  liked  to  dine  were  shut.  So 
we  bought  what  we  could  in  the  near  shops  and  sat  down  in  the  Rue  du 
Bac  to  eat  the  supper  we  had  collected.  After  we  had  finished  I 
witnessed  his  and  Mrs.  Whistler’s  wills,  which  Mr.  Webb  had  brought 
with  him  from  London,  and  for  this  the  long  day  had  been  a  preparation. 

If  I  did  not  always  accept  Whistler’s  invitations  he  would  reproach 
me  as  an  awful  disappointment  and  a  bad  man.  If  I  did  not  go  to  the 


Paris 

dinner,  to  which  I  was  bidden  at  an  hour’s  notice,  he  would  tell  me 
afterwards  of  the  much  cool  drink  and  encouraging  refreshment  he 
had  prepared  for  me.  He  always  asked  me  to  bring  my  friends.  Mr. 
J.  Fulleylove  had  come  over  to  ‘  do  ’  Paris  and  I  took  him  to  the  Rue  du 
Bac;  ‘  les  Pleins  d’ Amour’  Whistler  called  him  and  Mrs.  Fulleylove, 
whose  eyes  he  was  always  praising.  They  were  working  at  St.  Denis 
and  so  was  I,  and  one  day  Whistler  and  Mrs.  Whistler  came  in  the 
primitive  steam  tram  that  starts  from  the  Madeleine  to  see  the  place. 
We  lunched— badly— and  he  was  bored  with  the  church,  though  he 
had  brought  lithograph  paper  and  colours  to  make  a  sketch  of  it. 

“  One  Sunday  Mr.  E.  G.  Kennedy  posed  in  the  garden  for  his 
portrait  on  a  small  canvas  or  panel,  and  all  the  world  was  kept  out.  I 
had  never  before  seen  Whistler  paint.  He  worked  away  all  afternoon, 
hissing  to  himself,  which,  Mrs.  Whistler  said,  he  did  only  when  things 
were  going  well.  If  Kennedy  shifted— there  were  no  rests— Whistler 
would  scream,  and  he  worked  on  and  on,  and  the  sun  went  down,  and 
Kennedy  stood  and  Whistler  painted,  and  the  monks  began  their  chant, 
and  darkness  was  coming  on.  The  hissing  stopped,  a  paint-rag  came  out, 
and,  with  one  fierce  dash,  it  was  all  rubbed  off.  Oh,  well,  was  all  he 
said.  Kennedy  wras  limbered  up  and  w^e  went  to  dinner. 

“  After  that,  almost  every  night  we  dined  together  through  that 
lovely  June,  either  with  him  in  the  Rue  du  Bac,  or  he  came  with  Kennedy 
or  me  to  Marguery’s  or  La  Perouse— once  to  St.  Germain— or  somewhere 
that  was  delightful. 

“  The  summer  was  famous  in  Paris  for  the  ‘  Sarah  Brown  Students 
Revolution,’  the  row  that  grew  out  of  the  Quat’z  Arts  Ball.  Whistler 
did  not  take  the  slightest  interest  in  the  demonstrations,  in  fact,  did 
not  believe  they  were  taking  place,  though  I  used  to  bring  him  reports 
of  the  doings  which  culminated  on  July  my  birthday,  wThen  he  was 
to  have  given  me  a  dinner  at  Marguery’s.  I  told  him  the  streets  of  the 
Quarter  were  barricaded  and  full  of  soldiers,  but  though  he  ridiculed 
the  whole  affair,  he  decided  to  dine  at  home  and  to  put  off  by  telegram 
the  dinner  he  had  ordered.  I  went  round  to  the  Boulevard  St.  Germain 
to  send  the  wire  and  found  it  barred  with  soldiers  and  police,  and  the 
entire  boulevard,  as  far  as  one  could  see,  littered  with  hats  and  caps, 
sticks  and  umbrellas.  There  had  been  a  cavalry  charge  and  this  was 
the  result.  We  dined  merrily,  but  Kennedy  and  I  left  early.  There 
1893]  3*5 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

was  a  great  deal  of  rioting  through  the  night,  but  that  was  the  end 
of  it. 

Mrs.  Whistler  had  not  been  well,  and  they  suddenly  made  up  their 
minds  to  go  to  Brittany,  or  Normandy,  or  somewhere  on  the  coast. 
It  was  not  altogether  a  successful  journey.  Nature  had  gone  back 
on  him,^  he  wrote  me,  probably  because  of  his  exposure  of  her  ‘  foolish 
sunsets  ’ ;  the  weather  was  for  tourists,  the  sea  for  gold-fish  in  a  bowl— 
the  studio  was  better  than  staring  at  a  sea  of  tin.  And  the  terrible 
things  they  had  eaten  in  Brittany  made  them  ill.  But  the  lithographs 
at  Vitre  were  made,  also  the  Yellow  House ,  Lannion ,  and  the  Red- 
House,  Paimpol  his  first  elaborate  essays  in  colour. 

Only  a  few  impressions  of  the  Yellow  House  were  ever  pulled 
owing  to  some  accident  to  the  stone.  One  of  these  I  wanted  to 
buy.  Whistler  heard  of  it.  ‘  Well,  you  know,  very  flattering,  but 
altogether  absurd,’  he  told  me,  and  the  print  came  with  an  inscrip¬ 
tion  and  the  Butterfly.” 


CHAPTER  XXXVII  :  PARIS  CONTINUED.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-THREE  AND  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-FOUR. 

After  this  summer,  we  both  saw  still  more  of  Whistler  whenever  we 
were  in  Paris.  At  the  Rue  du  Bac  we  were  struck  by  the  few  French 
artists  at  his  Sunday  afternoons  and  the  predominance  of  Americans 
and  English.  It  seemed  to  us  that  French  artists  might  have  been  more 
cordial  and  the  French  nation  more  sensible  of  the  fact  that  a  distin¬ 
guished  foreign  artist  had  come  to  France.  During  his  life  at  least  one 
or  two  Americans,  one  a  rich  amateur,  were  made  Commanders  of  the. 
Legion  of  Honour,  while  he  remained  an  Officer.  Others  were  made 
foreign  Members  of  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  but  this,  the  highest 
honour  for  artists  in  France,  was  never  offered  to  him,  nor  was  he  elected 
to  International  Juries. 

V'  ith  a  few  French  and  foreign  artists  his  relations  were  friendly : 
Boldini,  Helleu,  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  Rodin,  Alfred  Stevens,  Aman- 
Jean  ;  but  the  greater  number  were  content  to  express  their  appreciation 
at  a  distance.  Mrs.  Whistler  spoke  little  French,  and  few  French 
artists  speak  any  English.  The  men  whom  Whistler  saw  most  were  not 
3 16  [1893 


PORTRAIT  OF  LADY  COLIN  CAMPBELL 
HARMONY  IN  WHITE  AND  IVORY 

OIL  (DESTROYED) 

From  a  photograph  lent  by  Pickford  R.  Waller  ,Esq. 
(See  page  259) 


Paris 

painters.  Viele-Griffin,  Octave  Mirbeau,  Arsene  Alexandre,  the  Comte 
de  Montesquiou,  Rodenbach  came  to  the  Rue  du  Bac.  Old  friends, 

Drouet  and  Duret,  were  sometimes  there,  though  not  often— his  intimacy 

with  them  and  Oulevey  was  not  really  renewed  until  after  Mrs.  Whistler  s 
death.  But  of  all  who  came,  none  endeared  himself  so  much  to  Whistler 
as  Stephane  Mallarme,  poet,  critic,  friend,  admirer.  Once,  at  Whistler’s 
suggestion,  he  visited  us  in  London,  and,  looking  from  our  windows 
to  the  Thames,  declared  he  could  understand  Whistler  better.  Official 
people  strayed  in  from  the  Embassies,  mostly  English.  American 
authors  and  American  collectors  appeared  on  Sundays.  Mr.  Howells, 
once  or  twice,  came  with  his  son  and  his  daughter,  of  whom  Whistler 
made  a  lithograph.  Journalists,  English  and  American,  wandered  in. 
And  English  and  American  artists  came,  or  tried  to  come,  in  crowds. 
The  younger  men  of  the  Glasgow  School,  James  Guthrie  and  John 
Lavery,  were  welcomed.  Then  there  were  the  Americans  living  in 
Paris  :  Walter  Gay,  Alexander  Harrison,  Frederick  MacMonnies, 
Edmund  H.  Wuerpel,  John  W.  Alexander,  Humphreys  Johnston, 
while  Sargent  and  Abbey  rarely  missed  an  opportunity  of  calling  at 
the  Rue  du  Bac. 

Whistler  was  hardly  less  cordial  to  students.  Milcendeau  has  told 
us  how  he  took  his  work— and  his  courage— with  him  and  went  to 
Whistler,  but,  reaching  the  door,  stood  trembling  at  the  thought  of 
meeting  the  Master  and  showing  his  drawings.  As  soon  as  Whistler 
saw  the  drawings  his  manner  was  so  charming— as  if  they  were  just  two 
artists  together— that  fear  was  forgotten,  and  Whistler  proved  his 
interest  by  inviting  Milcendeau  to  send  the  drawings  to  the  International. 
Whistler  met  American  and  English  students  not  only  at  home,  but  at 
the  American  Art  Association  in  Montparnasse,  then  a  bit  of  old  Paris — • 
a  little  white  house  with  green  shutters,  which  the  street  had  long  since 
left  on  a  lower  level,  and  at  the  back  a  garden  where,  under  the  great 
trees,  the  cloth  was  laid  in  summer  ;  just  the  house  to  please  Whistler. 
He  sometimes  went  to  the  club’s  dinners  and  celebrations.  At  one 
dinner  on  Washington’s  Birthday,  after  professional  professors  and 
popular  politicians  had  delivered  themselves,  he  was  finally  and  rather 
patronisingly  asked  to  speak  by  the  President,  who  was  either  an 
ambassador  or  a  dry-goods  storekeeper,  the  usual  patron  of  American 
art  and  supporter  of  American  art  institutions.  Whistler  said  ;  “  Now, 
1893]  3 l7 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

as  to  teaching.  In  England  it  is  all  a  matter  of  taste,  but  in  France 
at  least  they  tell  you  which  end  of  the  brush  to  stick  in  your  mouth.” 

Mr.  MacMonnies  remembers  another  evening  :  “A  millionaire 
friend  of  Whistler’s  and  mine  spoke  to  me  of  giving  a  dinner  to  the 
American  artists  in  Paris,  or  rather  to  Whistler,  and  inviting  the 
Paris  American  artists.  I  dissuaded  him,  by  saying  they  all  hated 
one  another  and  would  pass  the  evening  more  cheerfully  by  sticking 
forks  into  one  another  under  the  table  if  they  could.  Better  to  invite 
all  the  young  fry — the  American  students.  He  gladly  went  into 
it.  You  can  imagine  the  wild  joy  of  the  small  fry,  who  had,  of 
course,  never  met  Whistler.  Some  got  foolishly  drunk,  others  got 
bloated  with  freshness,  but  they  all  had  a  rare  time,  and  Whistler,  who 
sat  at  the  head,  more  than  any,  and  he  was  delightfully  funny.  The 
millionaire  was  enchanted,  and  also  a  distinguished  American  painter? 
who  sat  opposite  to  Whistler  and  who  was  much  respected  by  the  youth. 
At  one  pause  Whistler  said,  ‘  I  went  to  the  Louvre  this  morning  ’ — 
pause,  all  the  youths’  faces  wide  open,  expecting  pearls  of  wisdom  and 
points — ‘  and  I  was  amazed  ’ — pause  ;  everybody  open-eared — ‘  to 
see  the  amazing  way  they  keep  the  floors  waxed  !  ’  ” 

There  is  a  story  that  one  day  at  lunch-time  he  went  into  the  court¬ 
yard  of  the  Ecole  des  Beaux-Arts  and  walked  slowly  round,  only  to  be 
followed  in  a  few  minutes  by  a  single  line  of  students,  each  carrying  a 
mahlstick  as  he  carried  his  cane,  and  as  many  as  had  them  wearing  two 
sous  pieces  for  eye-glasses.  He  stopped  and  looked  at  the  statues  he 
wanted  to  see  and  they  stopped  and  looked,  and  they  followed  him, 
until  the  circuit  of  the  court  was  made,  when  they  bowed  each  other  out, 
and  it  was  not  till  long  after  that  they  learned  who  he  was.  American 
students,  if  not  so  filled  with  their  own  sense  of  humour,  are  said  to 
have  mobbed  him  on  one  occasion  when  he  went  to  a  cremerie,  upsetting 
tables  and  chairs  to  see  him. 

Mr.  Walter  Gay,  who  was  much  with  Whistler  during  these  years, 
gives  us  his  impressions  : 

“I  first  knew  Whistler  in  the  winter  of  ’94,  when  he  was  established 
in  Paris,  with  the  recently  married  Mrs.  Whistler,  in  his  apartment  of 
the  Rue  du  Bac.  The  marriage  was  a  happy  one  ;  she  appreciated 
fully  his  talent,  he  adored  her,  and  when  she  died  a  few  years  later  was 
crushed  at  her  loss.  In  spite  of  the  great  influence  exercised  by  Whistler 

318  [18M 


Paris 


on  contemporary  art,  he  was  never  lionised  in  Paris  as  he  had  been  in 
London  ;  Paris  is  not  the  place  for  lions,  there  are  already  too  many 
local  celebrities.  Perhaps  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  French  artists 
held  aloof  from  Whistler  was  Mrs.  Whistler’s  very  British  attitude 
towards  that  nation.  Once  at  a  dinner  of  French  artists  given  at  our 
house  in  honour  of  Whistler,  Mrs.  Whistler  expressed  the  most  Gallo¬ 
phobe  sentiments,  complaining  loudly  of  the  inhospitality  of  the  French 
towards  her  husband.  Although  sixty  years  when  I  knew  him,  he  had 
the  enthusiasm  and  energy  of  early  years.  His  handsome  grey-blue 
eyes  sparkled  with  the  fire  of  youth — they  were  young  eyes  in  an  old 
face.  I  think  it  strange  that  no  one  ever  seems  to  emphasise  his  singular 
beauty.  Not  only  were  his  features  finely  cut,  but  the  symmetry  of  his 
figure,  hands,  and  feet,  retained  until  late  in  life,  was  remarkable  ;  in 
youth  he  must  have  been  a  pocket  Apollo.  His  conversational  powers 
were  extraordinary — he  had  a  Celtic  richness  of  vocabulary.  .  .  .  He 
was  supersensitive  to  criticism.  Those  who  were  either  indifferent 
or  antipathetic  to  him,  his  imagination  instantly  transformed  into 
hidden  enemies.  That  weakness  of  the  artistic  temperament,  la  jolie 
de  la  ■persecution,  was  deeply  rooted  in  his  nature.  .  .  . 

“  No  one  can  realise,  who  has  not  watched  Whistler  paint,  the  agony 
his  work  gave  him.  I  have  seen  him  after  a  day’s  struggle  with  a 
picture,  when  things  did  not  go,  completely  collapse  as  from  an  illness. 
His  drawing  cost  him  infinite  trouble.  I  have  known  him  work  two 
weeks  on  a  hand,  and  then  give  it  up  discouraged.  .  ..  ..  My  last 
interview  with  Whistler  took  place  in  the  spring  of  1903,  in  London, 
about  two  months  before  his  death.  Hearing  that  he  was  far  from  well, 
I  went  to  see  him,  and  found  that  the  rumour  was  only  too  well  grounded* 
I  spent  the  afternoon  with  him  ;  he  was  singularly  gentle  and  affec¬ 
tionate,  and  clung  to  me  pathetically  as  though  he  too  realised  that 
it  was  to  be  our  last  meeting  in  this  world. 

“  Whatever  his  detractors  may  charge  against  him,  it  seems  to  me 
that  Whistler’s  faults  and  weaknesses  sprang  from  an  unbalanced 
mentality  ;  he  was  a  desequilibre,  the  common  defect  of  great  painters. 
The  unusual  combination  of  artistic  genius,  literary  gifts,  and  social 
attractions  which  made  up  Whistler’s  personality  was  unique  ;  there  was 
never  anybody  like  him.  And  there  is  another  quality  of  his  which 
must  not  be  forgotten  in  the  summing  up  of  his  character  ;  underneath 
1894]  319 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

all  his  vagaries  and  eccentricities  one  felt  that  indefinable  yet  unmis¬ 
takable  being — a  gentleman.” 

Mr.  Alexander  Harrison  shows  a  different  side  of  Whistler  : 
“  My  meetings  with  him  were  frequent  and  friendly.  On  one 
occasion,  in  a  moment  of  excitement,  I  had  the  audacity  to  tell  him  that 
I  felt  he  ought  to  have  acted  differently  vis-a-vis  a  jury  of  reception. 
His  eyes  flamed  like  a  rattlesnake’s  and  I  apologised,  but  insisted,  and 
then  dodged  a  little.  I  afterwards  realised  that  my  naive  frankness 
had  not  lowered  me  in  his  esteem,  as  to  the  last  he  was  nice  to  me,  having 
understood  that  my  admiration  for  his  work  was  no  greater  than  my 
affectionate  regard  for  him.  I  have  never  known  a  man  of  more  sincere 
and  genuine  impulse  in  ordinary  human  relations.” 

Now  that  Whistler  was  established  for  life,  as  he  hoped,  in  a  fine 
studio,  he  was  making  up  for  the  first  unsettled  years  after  his  marriage. 
He  began  a  number  of  large  portraits  in  the  Rue  Notre-Dame-des- 
Champs.  In  1893,  Mr.  A.  J.  Eddy,  known,  we  believe,  to  fame  and 
Chicago  as  “  the  man  Whistler  painted,”  asked  Whistler  to  paint  his 
portrait.  He  could  stay  in  Paris  only  a  few  weeks,  and  Whistler  liked 
his  American  frankness  in  saying  that  his  portrait  must  be  done  by  a 
certain  date,  and,  though  unaccustomed  to  be  tied  to  time,  Whistler 
agreed.  His  description  of  Mr.  Eddy  was,  “  Well,  you  know,  he  is 
the  only  man  who  ever  did  get  a  picture  out  of  me  on  time,  while  I 
worked  and  he  waited  !  ”  Mr.  Eddy  writes  of  a  sitter,  no  doubt  him¬ 
self,  who  was  with  Whistler  “  every  day  for  nearly  six  weeks  and  never 
heard  him  utter  an  impatient  word  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  was  all  kind¬ 
ness.”  And  Mr.  Eddy  describes  Whistler  painting  on  in  the  twilight 
until  it  was  impossible  to  distinguish  between  the  living  man  and  the 
figure  on  the  canvas.  He  recalls  the  memory  of  those  “glorious” 
days  spent  in  the  studio,  of  the  pleasant  hour  at  noon  when  painter  and 
sitter  breakfasted  there  together,  of  the  long  sittings,  and  the  dinner 
after  at  the  Rue  du  Bac,  or  in  one  of  the  little  restaurants  where  no 
Parisian  was  more  at  home  than  Whistler.  But  steadily  as  the  work  went 
on,  the  picture  was  not  sent  to  Chicago  until  the  following  year.  Mr. 
J.  J.  Cowan,  whose  portrait  dates  from  this  time,  tells  us  that  for  The 
Grey  Man,  a  small  full-length,  he  gave  sixty  sittings,  averaging  each 
three  to  four  hours.  He,  like  Whistler,  was  not  in  a  hurry,  but,  unlike 
Whistler,  he  eventually  got  tired,  and  a  model  was  called  in  and  posed 

,20  t1893"94 


^nc  ijmttuie  and  dutiful  JUctwrialaf  the 
uttfrrsigucft  iu  itcltatf  tut  a  Saaetij  afy^ur 

|Ita^v«tuV«taniiful^ulttCftr«4tcu^Hrtistf.. 

aud  patrons  mtf  *ttvUuuslim»  tffthc 


JUBILEE  MEMORIAL 

ILLUMINATION 

In  the  Ro>al  Collection  at  Windsor  Castle 


{See  page  262) 


Paris 


in  Mr.  Cowan’s  clothes.  The  last  sittings  were  in  London,  three  years 
after.  Even  then  Whistler  wrote  Mr.  Cowan  that  the  head  needed 
just  the  one  touch,  with  the  sitter  there,  so  that  perfection  might  be 
assured.  Another  portrait  was  of  Dr.  Davenport  of  Paris. 

The  portraits  of  women  were  more  numerous,  and  they  promised 
to  be  as  fine  as  those  done  in  the  seventies  and  eighties.  The  work  was 
interrupted  by  the  tragedy  of  Whistler’s  last  years,  and  the  more 
important  were  never  completed.  For  one,  Miss  Charlotte  Williams, 
of  Baltimore,  sat,  but  the  painting  disappeared,  and  only  the  rare  litho¬ 
graph  of  her  remains.  Another  lost  portrait  was  a  large  full-length  of 
Miss  Peck,  of  Chicago,  now  Mrs.  W.  R.  Farquhar,  which  we  saw  in 
many  stages,  and  at  last,  as  it  seemed  to  us,  finished.  She  was  painted 
standing,  in  evening  dress,  with  her  long  white,  green-lined  cloak  thrown 
back  a  little,  as  he  had  painted  Lady  Meux.  It  was  full  of  the  charm 
of  youth,  and  the  colour  was  a  harmony  in  silver  and  green.  Miss 
Kinsella,  a  third  American  girl  who  posed  in  the  Rue  Notre-Dame-des- 
Champs,  and  in  Fitzroy  Street,  secured  her  portrait  after  Whistler’s 
death.  We  remember  it  in  the  Fitzroy  Street  studio,  when  it  was  so 
perfect  that  one  more  day’s  work  would  ruin  it.  In  no  other  did  he 
ever  paint  flesh  with  such  perfection.  Face  and  neck  had  the  golden 
tone  of  Titian,  with  a  subtlety  of  modelling  beyond  the  Venetian’s 
powers,  for  in  his  later  years  it  was  to  surpass  the  Venetians  he  was  trying. 
One  day  when  E.  went  to  the  studio  he  had  just  scraped  down  neck  and 
bust,  for  no  reason  except  that  he  could  not  get  the  hand  to  come  right 
with  the  rest.  It  was  to  be  lovelier  than  ever,  he  said.  It  was  never 
repainted.  It  remains  but  a  shadow  of  its  loveliness.  When  M.  Rodin 
saw  it  at  the  London  Memorial  Exhibition,  he  praised  neck  and  bust 
to  J.  as  “  a  beautiful  suggestion  of  lace,”  so  beautiful  in  tone  and  model¬ 
ling  it  still  is.  That  posing  for  Whistler  was  difficult  we  know  from  these 
ladies  and  many  of  his  other  sitters,  as  well  as  from  our  experience.  Over 
and  over,  when  he  wanted  to  work  on  their  portraits,  he  would  telegraph 
to  the  last  address  he  happened  to  have,  though  sometimes  the  tele¬ 
grams  did  not  reach  them  till  weeks  after  in  some  distant  part  of  the 
world.  The  fact  that  his  sitters  were  not  always  waiting  for  him  not 
only  upset  him  temporarily,  but  sometimes  stopped  the  subject  alto¬ 
gether.  One  incident  in  connection  with  the  portrait  of  Miss  Kinsella 
amused  him.  She  holds  an  iris  in  her  hand.  A  real  flower  was  got, 
1893-94]  X  321 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

but  the  flower  would  fade,  and  irises  were  not  easy  to  obtain.  So  he 
went  to  Liberty’s  to  get  some  stuff  of  the  purple-violet  tone  he  wanted 
out  of  which  to  make  a  flower.  He  explained  what  he  needed  to  the 
shopman,  who  solemnly  informed  him  that  Messrs.  Liberty  only  kept 
“  art  colours.” 

Portraits  of  Mrs.  Charles  Whibley  were  in  progress  about  the  same 
time  :  UAndalou.se ,  Mother  of  Pearl  and  Silver ,  the  unfinished  Tulip, 
Rose  and  Gold,  and  Red  and  Black,  The  Fan.  Two  others  of  this  period 
are  of  Mrs.  Walter  Sickert,  Green  and  Violet,  the  second  for  which  she 
sat,  and  Lady  Eden,  Brown  and  Gold.  He  was  also  painting  his  own 
portrait  in  the  white  jacket,  which  was  changed  into  a  black  coat  after 
Mrs.  Whistler’s  death,  and  a  full-length  in  a  long  brown  overcoat  shown 
in  1900  and  not  since. 

The  large  canvases  had  to  be  left  when  he  shut  up  the  studio,  but 
he  could  carry  his  little  portfolio  of  lithographic  paper  and  box  of  chalks 
everywhere,  and  during  those  two  or  three  years  he  developed  the  art  of 
lithography  as  no  one  had  before,  he  and  Fantin-Latour  being  the  two 
chief  factors  in  the  revival  of  lithography  in  the  nineties.  He  was 
determined,  he  said,  to  make  “  a  roaring  success  of  it.”  In  the  streets 
and  at  home  he  was  constantly  at  work,  and  the  result  is  the  series  of 
lithographs  of  the  shops  and  gardens  and  galleries  of  Paris  and  many 
portraits.  His  interest  in  technique  was  tireless.  He  experimented  on 
transfer-paper  and  on  stone.  He  hunted  old  paper  as  strenuous  people 
hunt  lions.  Drawings  and  proofs  were  for  ever  in  the  post  between 
Paris  and  London,  where  the  Ways  were  transferring  and  printing  for 
him,  and  friends  were  for  ever  bringing  paper  from  London  or  carrying 
drawings  tremblingly  back  from  Paris.  He  was  deep  in  experiments 
with  colour,  and  a  few  of  the  lithographs  for  Songs  on  Stone,  already 
announced  by  Mr.  Heinemann,  were  at  last  ready.  They  were  proved 
in  Paris  by  Belfont,  but  his  shop  closed  in  1894,  printer  and  stones 
vanished,  and  this  was  the  end  of  the  proposed  publication.  Since 
Whistler’s  death  mysterious  prints  in  black-and-white  from  the  key 
stones  have  turned  up  in  Germany,  but  only  a  few  prints  in  colour 
remain,  no  two  alike,  trials  in  colour.  He  had  looked  for  great  things  : 
“  You  know,  I  mean  them  to  wipe  up  the  place  before  I  get  done,” 
he  said,  and  their  loss  was  a  severe  disappointment.  Other  lithographs, 
made  then  or  later,  were  published  in  the  Studio,  the  Art  Journal, 
322  [1894 


Trials  and  Griefs 

L’Estampe  Originale,  Vlmagier ,  the  Pageant ,  and  one  in  our  Lithography 
and  Lithographers.  He  never  wanted  to  keep  his  work,  no  matter  in 
what  medium,  from  the  public.  With  commissions  and  experiments 
keeping  him  busy  in  Paris,  Whistler  was,  as  he  wrote  to  us  in  London, 
working  from  morning  to  night,  and  in  a  condition  for  it  he  wouldn’t 
change  for  anything.  He  was  compelled  to  change  it  only  too  soon. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII:  TRIALS  AND  GRIEFS.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-FOUR  TO  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SIX. 

In  1894  interruptions  came,  some  slight,  but  one  so  serious  that  life 
and  work  were  never  the  same  again. 

A  tedious  annoyance  was  caused  by  Du  Maurier’s  Trilby  in  Harper's 
Magazine.  Du  Maurier  represented  the  English  students  at  Carrel’s 
(Gleyre’s)  as  veritable  Crichtons,  while  Whistler,  under  the  name  of 
Joe  Sibley,  was  ridiculed.  Du  Maurier’s  drawings  left  no  doubt  as 
to  the  identity,  for  in  one  Whistler  wears  the  chapeau  bizarre  over  his 
curls.  Another  shows  him  running  away  from  a  studio  fight,  and 
the  text  is  more  offensive.  Joe  Sibley  is  “‘the  Idle  Apprentice,’ 
the  King  of  Bohemia,  le  roi  des  truands,  to  whom  everything  was 
forgiven,  as  to  Francois  Villon,  d  cause  de  ses  gentillesses  .  .  .  Always 
in  debt  .  .  .  vain,  witty,  and  a  most  exquisite  and  original  artist 
.  .  .  with  an  unimpeachable  moral  tone.  .  .  .  Also  eccentric  in  his 
attire  .  .  .  the  most  irresistible  friend  in  the  world  as  long  as  his 
friendship  lasted,  but  that  was  not  for  ever  ...  His  enmity  would 
take  the  simple  and  straightforward  form  of  trying  to  punch  his 
ex-friend’s  head  ;  and  when  the  ex-friend  was  too  big  he  would  get 
some  new  friend  to  help  him.  .  .  .  His  bark  was  worse  than  his  bite 
...  he  was  better  with  his  tongue  than  his  fists.  .  .  .  But  when  he 
met  another  joker  he  would  just  collapse  like  a  pricked  bladder.  He 
is  now  perched  on  such  a  topping  pinnacle  (of  fame  and  notoriety 
combined)  that  people  can  stare  at  him  from  two  hemispheres  at 
once.” 

Du  Maurier  had  posed  as  a  friend  for  years,  and  in  the  Pall  Mall 
Gazette  Whistler  protested  against  the  insult.  Du  Maurier,  to  an 
interviewer,  expressed  surprise  ;  he  thought  the  description  of  Joe 

1894]  323 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Sibley  would  recall  the  good  times  in  Paris,  and  he  pretended  to  be 
amazed  that  Whistler  did  not  agree.  He  claimed  that  he  was  one  of 
Whistler’s  victims,  and  quoted  Sheridan  Ford’s  pirated  edition  of 
The  Gentle  Art: 

“  It  was  rather  droll.  Listen  :  ‘  Mr.  Du  Maurier  and  Mr.  Wilde 
happening  to  meet  in  the  rooms  where  Mr.  Whistler  was  holding  his 
first  exhibition  of  Venice  etchings,  the  latter  brought  the  two  face  to 
face,  and,  taking  each  by  the  arm,  inquired,  “  I  say,  which  one  of  you 
two  invented  the  other,  eh  ?  ”  ’  The  obvious  retort  to  that,  on  my  part, 
would  have  been  that,  if  he  did  not  take  care,  I  would  invent  him , 
but  he  had  slipped  away  before  either  of  us  could  get  a  word  out.  .  .  . 
I  did  what  I  did  in  a  playful  spirit  of  retaliation  for  this  little  jibe  about 
me  in  his  book.” 

The  editor  of  Harper's  had  not  understood  the  offensive  nature 
of  the  passages.  Whistler  called  his  attention  to  them,  and  an  apology 
was  published  in  the  magazine  (January  1895),  the  number  was  sup¬ 
pressed,  and  Du  Maurier  was  compelled  to  omit  them,  and  to  change 
Joe  Sibley  to  Bald  Anthony  in  the  book.  Whistler,  when  the  changes 
were  submitted  to  him,  was  satisfied.  But  he  said  : 

“  Well,  you  know,  what  would  have  happened  to  the  new  Thackeray 
if  I  hadn’t  been  willing  ?  But  I  was  gracious,  and  I  gave  my  approval 
to  the  sudden  appearance  in  the  story  of  an  Anthony,  tall  and  stout 
and  slightly  bald.  The  dangerous  resemblance  was  gone.  And  I 
wired— -well,  you  know,  ha  ha  ! — I  wired  to  them  over  in  America 
compliments  and  complete  approval  of  author’s  new  and  obscure 
friend,  Bald  Anthony  !  ” 

Trilby  was  burlesqued  at  the  Gaiety,  and  Whistler  was  dragged 
in  as  The  Stranger.  His  hat,  overcoat,  eye-glass,  curls,  and  cane  were 
copied,  but  no  one  paid  the  slightest  attention,  and  The  Stranger 
vanished  after  the  first  night. 

Sometimes  Whistler  found  insult  where  none  was  intended,  as 
in  the  case  of  a  Bibliography  compiled  in  189s  for  the  Library  Bulletin 
of  the  University  of  the  State  of  New  York— all  the  copies  burnt,  we  hear, 
in  the  fire  at  the  State  Capitol,  Albany.  It  was  an  appreciation,  but 
it  contained  inaccuracies  and  quoted  as  authorities  critics  he  objected 
to,  and  he  was  more  vexed  by  it  than  there  was  need.  Another 
annoyance  was  an  anonymous  article  in  McClure's  Magazine ;  Whistler, 
324  [1894-95 


ILLUSTRATION  TO  LITTLE  JOHANNES 
PORTRAIT 

DRAWINGS  ON  WOOD 
In  the  possession  of  Joseph  Pennell,  Esq. 

( See  fage  268) 


Trials  and  Griefs 

Painter  and  Comedian  (September  1896).  He  demanded  an  apology 
and  the  suppression  of  the  article,  and  both  were  granted.  And  so 
it  went  on  to  the  end  ;  he  was  continually  coming  upon  references 
to  himself,  disfigured  by  misunderstanding,  misrepresentation,  and 
malice. 

These  worries  occupied  his  time  and  tried  his  temper.  But  he  was 
overwhelmed  late  in  1894  by  a  trouble  infinitely  more  tragic.  His 
wife  was  taken  ill  with  the  terrible  disease,  cancer.  They  came  to 
London  to  consult  the  doctors  in  December.  First  they  stayed  at 
Long’s  Hotel  in  Bond  Street,  Mrs.  Whistler  surrounded  by  her  numerous 
sisters,  the  two  Paris  servants,  Louise  and  Constant,  in  attendance  ; 
then  Mrs.  Whistler  was  under  a  doctor’s  care  in  Holies  Street,  and 
Whistler  stopped  with  his  brother  in  Wimpole  Street.  Those  who 
loved  him  would  like  to  forget  his  misery  during  the  weeks  and  months 
that  followed.  Work  was  going  on  somehow  ;  not  painting,  that 
waited  in  Paris,  but  lithography— several  portraits  of  Lady  Haden, 
a  drawing  in  Wellington  Street,  and  others.  But  he  told  Mr.  Way 
afterwards  that  he  wanted  them  all  destroyed;  he  should  not  have 
worked  when  his  heart  was  not  in  it:  “  It  was  madness  on  my  part.” 
He  brought  proofs  to  show  us.  Almost  every  afternoon  he  would 
take  J.  to  Way’s,  where  the  lithographs  were  being  transferred  to  the 
stone  and  printed.  He  would  lunch  or  dine  with  us,  keeping  up  his 
brave  front,  though  we  knew  what  was  in  his  heart.  He  had  not  been 
in  his  “Palatial  Residence”  two  years  before  it  was  closed,  and  the 
canvases  were  left  untouched  in  the  “  Stupendous  Studio.”  New 
honours  and  new  successes  came  :  in  1894  the  Temple  Gold  Medal 
from  the  Pennsylvania  Academy,  in  1895  a  Gold  Medal  from  Antwerp, 
and  innumerable  commissions.  It  was  just  as  fortune  smiled  that  the 
blow  fell. 

The  Eden  trial,  which  struck  many  as  an  unnecessary  and  almost 
farcical  episode  in  his  life,  distracted  him  during  these  tragic  months. 
His  work  ceased  for  weeks  at  a  time,  and  he  devoted  himself  to  the 
case.  His  journeys  to  Paris  were  frequent  and  his  correspondence 
enormous.  The  case  was  fought  out  in  the  courts  of  France.  It 
arose  out  of  the  uncertainty  as  to  the  price  which  Sir  William  Eden 
should  pay  for  his  wife’s  portrait.  He  was  introduced  to  Whistler 
by  Mr.  George  Moore,  to  whom  Whistler  had  mentioned  one  hundred 
1894-95]  32, 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

to  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  for  a  sketch  in  water-colour  or  pastel. 
Whistler  became  interested  in  his  sitter  and  made  a  small  full-length 
oil,  for  which  he  would  have  asked  a  far  larger  sum.  His  irritation 
can  be  understood  when  Sir  William  Eden  attempted  to  make  him 
accept  as  “  a  valentine  ” — for  it  was  paid  on  February  14— -one  hundred 
pounds  in  a  sealed  envelope.  Whistler  felt  that  the  fee  should  have  been 
left  to  him  to  decide.  He  refused  to  give  up  the  picture,  he  cashed 
the  cheque,  and  he  did  not  return  the  money  until  legal  proceedings 
were  taken  by  the  Baronet.  Before  the  case  came  into  court  he 
wiped  out  the  head.  Even  his  friends  thought  that  Whistler  made 
a  grave  mistake  and  prejudiced  his  case  when  he  cashed  the  cheque, 
instead  of  throwing  it  after  the  Baronet,  who,  on  his  hasty  retreat 
from  the  studio,  Whistler  said,  protested  and  threatened  all  the  way 
down  the  six  flights,  while  he  from  the  top  urged  the  Baronet  not  to 
expose  his  nationality  by  so  unseemly  a  noise  in  a  public  place. 

Whistler  went  to  Paris  for  the  trial  before  the  Civil  Tribunal  on 
March  6,  1895.  His  advocates  were  Maitre  Ratier,  by  whose  side  he 
sat  in  court,  and  Maitre  Beurdeley,  a  collector  of  his  etchings.  Sir 
William  Eden  failed  to  appear.  Whistler  was  ordered  to  deliver  the 
portrait  as  painted,  a  penalty  to  be  imposed  in  case  of  delay  ;  to  refund 
twenty-five  hundred  francs,  his  lowest  price  ;  to  pay  in  addition  one 
thousand  francs  damages.  The  judge  stated  that  he  was  in  honour 
bound  not  to  deface  the  portrait  after  he  had  completed  it,  and  that 
an  artist  must  carry  out  his  contract. 

To  Whistler  the  judgment  was  unjust ;  he  appealed  in  the  Cour  de 
Cassation,  and  the  matter  dragged  on  until  after  Mrs.  Whistler’s  death. 
In  England  “  An  Artist  ”  (J.)  tried  to  raise  a  fund  to  pay  the  expenses 
of  the  trial,  in  order  “  to  show  in  some  practical  form  artists’  appre¬ 
ciation  for  the  genius  of  James  McNeill  Whistler.”  His  appeal  was 
responded  to  by  only  one  other  artist,  Mr.  Frederick  MacMonnies, 
and  was  as  unsuccessful  as  the  subscription  started  after  the  Ruskin 
trial  in  1878. 

Mr.  George  Moore  had  been  the  go-between  when  the  portrait 
was  commissioned,  Sir  William  Eden’s  ally  in  the  legal  business,  and  a 
conspicuous  figure  in  the  newspaper  muddle.  After  the  trial  Whistler 
wrote  Moore  a  scathing  letter.  Moore’s  answer  was  to  taunt  Whistler 
with  old  age.  This  was  published  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  and 
326  [1895 


Trials  and  Griefs 

reprinted  in  French  papers.  Whistler  was  in  France  and  he  sent 
Moore  a  challenge.  Whistler’s  seconds  were  M.  Octave  Mirbeau  and 
M.  Viele-Griffin.  Their  challenge  remained  unanswered,  but  after 
several  days  Moore  relieved  his  feelings  to  a  reporter.  London  looked 
upon  the  challenge  as  Whistler’s  crowning  joke.  It  was  no  joke  to 
Moore,  who  was  sufficiently  conversant  with  French  manners  to  know 
how  his  conduct  would  be  received  in  Paris.  Whistler  s  seconds  sent 
a  proces  verbal  to  the  Press,  stating  that  they  had  waited  eight  days  for 
an  answer,  and  not  having  received  one,  they  considered  their  mission 
terminated. 

Thus  before  the  world  Whistler  kept  up  the  game,  though  in  the 
Rue  du  Bac  life  was  a  tragedy.  Mrs.  Whistler  had  returned  more  ill 
than  ever.  Miss  Ethel  Philip  was  married  from  the  house  early  in 
the  summer  to  Mr.  Charles  Whibley,  and  her  sister,  Miss  Rosalind 
Birnie  Philip,  took  her  place. 

After  the  trial  Whistler  went  back  to  work.  He  sent  The  Little 
White  Girl  to  the  International  Exhibition  at  Venice  ;  he  exhibited 
the  second  portrait  of  Mrs.  Sickert  at  the  Glasgow  Institute ;  he  chose 
six  lithographs  for  the  Centenary  Exhibition  in  Paris.  A  head  of 
Carmen,  his  model,  was  ready  for  the  Portrait  Painters  in  London. 
When  in  the  late  summer  he  returned  to  England,  and,  with  Mrs. 
Whistler,  settled  at  the  Red  Lion  Hotel,  Lyme  Regis,  he  arranged 
a  show  of  his  lithographs  in  London.  The  Society  of  Illustrators,  of 
which  he  was  Vice-President,  was  preparing  an  anthology,  The  London 
Garland ,  edited  by  W.  E.  Henley,  illustrated  by  members,  and  published 
by  Messrs.  Macmillan,  j.  asked  him  to  contribute  an  illustration  to 
a  sonnet  of  Henley’s.  But  he  had  to  abandon  this  plan  and  allow  a 
Nocturne  to  be  reproduced.  He  made  several  lithographs  at  Lyme 
Regis :  glowing  forges,  dark  stables  with  horses  an  animal  painter 
would  envy,  the  smith,  and  the  landlord.  Absolute  failures,  some, 
he  told  us  sadly;  “  others,  well,  you  know,  not  bad  !  ”  Two  of  the 
pictures  painted  at  Lyme  Regis  are  masterpieces  :  The  Little  Rose  of 
Lyme  Regis  and  The  Master  Smith.  In  these  he  solved  the  problem 
of  carrying  on  his  work  as  he  wished  until  it  was  finished.  There  also 
he  painted  the  only  large  landscape  we  know  of  :  the  white  houses  of 
the  town,  the  hill-side  with  trees  beyond. 

While  he  was  still  in  Dorset  a  prize  was  awarded  him  at  Venice, 
1895]  3 z7 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Several  prizes  in  money  were  given  in  different  sections  to  artists  of 
different  nationalities.  Whistler  was  awarded  two  thousand  five 
hundred  francs  by  the  City  of  Murano,  the  seventh  on  the  list.  He 
knew  the  “enemies,”  foresaw  the  prattle  there  would  be  of  the  seventh- 
hand  compliment,  and  forestalled  it  by  explaining  in  the  Press  how  the 
prizes  had  been  awarded,  his  being  equal  to  the  first. 

The  exhibition  of  his  lithographs  was  held  at  the  Fine  Art  Society’s 
in  December  1895.  Seventy  were  shown,  mostly  the  work  of  the  last 
few  years,  and  J.  wrote  an  introduction  to  the  catalogue,  the  only  time 
he  asked  anybody  to  “  introduce  ”  him.  There  were  no  decorations  in 
the  gallery,  nor  was  the  catalogue  in  brown  paper,  save  twenty- five 
copies,  but  the  prints  were  in  his  frames.  English  artists  became 
interested  in  lithography  because  they  were  asked  to  contribute  to  the 
Centenary  Exhibition  in  Paris,  and,  at  the  call  of  Leighton,  they  tried 
their  hands  at  it,  more  or  less  unsuccessfully.  The  contrast  was  great 
between  their  work  shown  at  Mr.  Dunthorne’s  gallery  and  Whistler’s, 
whose  prints  alone  are  destined  to  live. 

Whistler  derived  little  pleasure  from  his  triumph.  The  winter 
was  spent  moving  from  place  to  place.  His  plans  were  made  to  go  to 
New  York  to  consult  an  American  specialist,  forgetting  as  well  as  he 
could  “the  vast  far-offness  ”  of  America.  But  he  stayed  in  London, 
first  at  Garlant’s  Hotel,  then  in  apartments  in  Half-Moon  Street, 
later  at  the  De  Vere  Gardens  Hotel,  and  then  at  the  Savoy.  Work  of 
one  sort  or  another  marked  these  moves  :  the  lithograph  of  Kensington 
Gardens  from  the  De  Vere  Hotel ;  at  the  Savoy  most  pathetic  drawings 
of  his  wife,  The  Siesta  and  By  the  Balcony ,  and  the  Thames  from  the 
hotel  windows.  He  had  during  the  first  months  no  studio  in  London. 
He  worked  for  a  while  in  Mr.  Walter  Sickert’s  ;  Mr.  Sargent  lent  his 
early  in  ^1896,  when  there  was  talk  of  a  lithograph  of  Cecil  Rhodes  and 
a  portrait  of  Mr.  A.  J.  Pollitt,  of  whom  he  made  a  lithograph,  though 
the  painting,  begun  later  in  Fitzroy  Street,  was  destroyed. 

He  interested  himself  in  the  experiments  of  others.  In  the  winter 
of  1895  J-  was  asked  by  the  Daily  Chronicle  to  edit  the  illustration  of 
a  series  of  articles  on  London,  in  support  of  the  Progressive  County 
Council.  It  was  an  event  of  importance  to  illustrators,  process-men, 
and  printers  :  the  first  effort  in  England  for  the  artistic  illustration 
of  a  daily  paper.  The  Daily  Graphic  was  illustrated,  but  its  draughts- 
328  [1895-96 


THE  BEACH 

WATER-COLOUR 

lu  the  possession  of  Mrs.  Knowles 


( See  page  271) 


Trials  and  Griefs 

men  were  trained  to  adapt  their  drawings  to  the  printer.  The  scheme 
now  was  to  oblige  the  printer  to  adapt  himself  to  the  illustrator.  Every 
illustrator  of  note  in  London  contributed.  Burne-Jones’  frontispiece 
to  William  Morris’  News  from  Nowhere  was  enlarged  and  printed 
successfully.  J.  asked  Whistler  to  let  him  try  the  experiment  of 
enlarging  one  of  the  Thames  etchings.  Whistler  was  interested. 
Black  Lion  Wharj  was  selected  and  printed  in  the  Daily  Chronicle , 
February  22,  1895,  the  very  day  of  the  month,  Washington  s  Birthday , 
when,  ten  years  later,  the  London  Memorial  Exhibition  opened. .  With 
its  publication  the  success  of  the  series  was  complete,  not  politically, 
for  the  twenty-four  drawings  were  said  to  have  lost  the  Progressives 
twenty-five  seats.  The  etching  stood  the  enlarging  superbly.  J.  made 
the  proprietors  pay  for  the  print,  the  first  time  Whistler  was  paid  for 
the  use  of  one  of  his  works  not  made  as  an  illustration. 

Whistler  came  to  us  almost  daily.  Late  one  afternoon  he  brought 
his  transfer-paper,  and  made  a  lithograph  of  J.  as  he  sprawled  com¬ 
fortably,  and  uncomfortably  had  to  keep  the  pose,  in  an  easy-chair 
before  the  fire.  Whistler  made  four  portraits  in  succession  of  j.  and 
one  of  E.,  each  in  an  afternoon.  He  drew  on  as  the  light  faded,  and 
the  portrait  of  E.  was  done  while  the  firelight  flickered  on  her  face 
and  on  his  paper.  Then  he  told  us  he  had  taken  a  studio  in  Fitzroy 
Street  to  paint  a  large  full-length  of  J.  in  a  Russian  cloak-—  The  Russian 
Schube — which  he  thought  the  Pennsylvania  Academy  of  Fine  Arts 
might  like  to  have.  But  J.  was  called  away,  Mrs.  Whistler  grew  rapidly 
worse,  the  scheme  was  dropped  never  to  be  taken  up  again. 

On  other  afternoons  he  and  J.  would  go  to  Way’s,  where  the  Savoy 
drawings  were  put  on  the  stone.  The  lithotint  of  The  Thames  was 
done  on  a  stone  sent  to  the  hotel.  Drawings  made  in  Paris,  Lyme 
Regis,  London  were  transferred  and  gone  all  over  with  chalk,  stump, 
scraper.  He  worked  in  a  little  room  adjoining  Mr.  Way’s  office,  the 
walls  of  which  were  covered  with  pastels  and  water-colours  by  him 
and  C.  E.  Holloway.  There  he  drew  the  portraits  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Way  in  the  firelight,  never  stopping  until  dark,  when  Mr.  Way  would 
bring  out  some  rare  old  liqueur,  and  there  was  a  rest  before  he  hurried 
back  to  the  Savoy.  His  nights  were  spent  sitting  up  by  his  wife.  He 
slept  a  little  in  the  morning  and  usually  came  to  us  in  the  afternoon, 
at  times  so  exhausted  that  we  feared  more  for  him  than  for  her. 
1895-96] 


329 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

The  studio  at  No.  8  Fitzroy  Street  was  a  huge  place  at  the  back 
of  the  house,  one  flight  up,  reached  by  a  ramshackle  glass-roofed 
passage.  The  portrait  of  Mr.  Pollitt  was  started  and  one  of  Mr. 
Robert  Barr’s  daughter,  which  has  disappeared.  Mr.  Cowan  sat  again, 
and  another  was  begun  of  Mr.  S.  R.  Crockett,  who  describes  the 
sittings  : 

“  I  don’t  think  he  liked  me  at  first.  Someone  had  told  him  I  was 
a  Philistine  of  Askelon.  .  .  .  He  told  me  lots  about  his  early  times 
in  London  and  Paris,  but  all  in  fragments,  just  as  the  thing  occurred 
to  him.  Like  an  idiot,  I  took  no  notes.  Lots,  too,  about  Carlyle 
and  his  sittings,  as  likely  to  interest  a  Scot.  He  had  got  on  unexpectedly 
well  with  True  Thomas,  chiefly  by  letting  him  do  the  talking,  and  never 
opening  his  mouth,  except  when  Carlyle  wanted  him  to  talk.  Carlyle 
asked  him  about  Paris,  and  was  unexpectedly  interested  in  the  cafes , 
and  so  forth.  Whistler  told  him  the  names  of  some— Riche,  Anglais, 
Vefour,  and  Foyot  and  Lavenue  on  the  south  side.  Carlyle  seemed 
to  be  mentally  taking  notes.  Then  he  suddenly  raised  his  head  and 
demanded,  ‘  Can  a  man  get  a  chop  there  ?  ’ 

“  Concerning  my  own  sittings,  he  was  very  particular  that  I  should 
always  be  in  good  form—'  trampling  ’  as  he  said— otherwise  he  would 
tell  me  to  go  away  and  play.  .  .  ,  Mr.  Fisher  Unwin  had  arranged 
for  a  lithograph,  but  Whistler  said  he  would  make  a  picture  like  a  postage 
stamp,  and  next  year  all  the  exhibitions  would  be  busy  as  anthills 
with  similar  ‘  postage  stamp  ’  portraits.  ‘  Some  folk  think  life-size 
means  six  foot  by  three  ;  I’ll  show  them  !  ’  he  said  more  than  once. 
I  wanted  to  shell  out  as  he  went  on,  and  once,  being  flush  (new  book 
or  something),  I  said  I  had  fifty  pounds  which  was  annoying  me,  and 
I  wished  he  would  take  it.  He  was  very  sweet  about  it,  and  said  he 
understood.  Money  burnt  a  hole  in  his  pocket,  too,  but  he  could 
not  take  any  money,  as  he  might  never  finish  the  work.  Any  day  his 
brush  might  drop,  and  he  could  not  do  another  stroke. 

“  It  was  a  bad  omen  !  His  wife  grew  worse.  He  sent  me  word 
not  to  come.  She  died,  and  I  never  saw  him  after.  I  wish  you  could  tell 
me  what  became  of  that  picture.  He  called  it  The  Grey  Man.” 

This  is  another  example  of  Whistler’s  repetition  of  titles.  Mr. 
Cowan’s  portrait,  painted  the  same  year,  was  The  Grey  Man  too.  Of 
Mr.  Crockett’s,  Whistler  said  to  us  that  Crockett  was  delighted  with  it 
330  [1896 


Trials  and  Griefs 

as  far  as  it  had  gone,  and  he  was  rather  pleased  with  it  himself.  He 
aS  i  r  l  moll  full  lengths  which  were  to  show  the 

oi  t  “ ‘Sr.  - 

a  portrai  P  t0CKj  for  a  second,  now  in  the  Metropolitan 

portrait  destroyed  in  Paris,  stooaioi  a  „  „  Hnllnwav  for  The 

Museum  ;  Mr.  Arnold  Hannay  for  another  ;  •  • 

Philosopher,  which  Whistler  considered  particularly  success  u  . 

In  the  spring  Whistler  moved  his  wife  from  the  Savoy  to  St.  Jude 

Cottage,  Hampstead  Hea|^’  ^sad  day  wheri  for  the^first  time 

this  he  began  up  hope.  Jt  was  a  ^  ^ 

endtTs  near  the  afternoon  when  he,  the  most  fastidious  append 

WellinSB°ur  Se/ ma^rh^t^n  Us  despair  he  did 
corn.  But  indeed,  ma  y  Mr>  g  dney  piling  met 

him  ^walking, ^running  across  the  Heath,  looking  at  nothing,  s«ing 

“  MsS-S^g”;.  That  vjis  the  end. 
SPeMrs.  Whistler  died  on  May  10  and  was  buried  at  Chiswick  on  the 
lath.  We  have  heard  that  the  funeral  was  arranged  for  the  13*, 
bit  Whistler,  objecting  to  the  date,  postponed  it  a  day,  and  Mrs 

i  •  j  l  KirtVirltiv  He  never  would  do  anything  on 
Whistler  was  buried  on  her  birthday,  ne  never  wu  / 

theWe' tereheabr°oid,hbut  ‘the  first  Sunday  after  ^ B^^herT h'e 
and  asked  her  to  go  with  him  to  the  National  Gallery.  There  he 
showed  her  the  pictures  "  Trixie  ”  loved,  standing  long ;  before s  Tin  j 
retto’s  Milky  Way,  her  favourite.  There  was  no  talk  a  ou  p 
Canaletto  was  barely  looked  at-there  was  no  talk  about  anything, 
and  the  tragedy  that  could  not  be  forgotten  was  never  referred  to. 
But  M  Paul  Renouard  was  in  the  Gallery  and  came  to  Whistler  with 
?“  word  of  comfort,  from  which  he  shrank.  During  the  first  few 
months  after  Mrs.  Whistler’s  death,  in  the  shock  of  his  sorrow  and 
Ts  Wifi  er  made  her  sister,  Miss  Rosalind  Birme  Philip,  h.s  ward, 
and  drew  up  a  new  will  appointing  her  his  heiress  and  executrix; 
eventually  cancelling  his  former  bequests,  and  leaving  every  mg 
her  absolutely. 


1896] 


331 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

CHAPTER  XXXIX :  ALONE,  THE  YEAR  EIGHTEEN  NINETY- 

SIX. 

Whistler  stayed  a  short  time  at  Hampstead  with  his  sisters-in-law, 
and  then  went  to  Mr.  Heinemann  at  Whitehall  Court,  where  he 
remained,  on  and  off,  for  two  or  three  years,  spending  only  the  periods 
of  Mr,  Heinemann’s  absence  at  Garlant’s  Hotel  or  in  Paris.  He  was 
with  us  day  after  day.  Little  notes  came  from  the  studio  to  ask  if 
we  would  be  in  and  alone  in  the  evening,  and,  if  so,  he  would  dine 
with  us.  At  first  he  would  not  join  us  if  we  expected  anyone.  He 
liked  to  sit  and  talk,  he  said,  but  he  could  not  meet  other  people.  He 
saw  few  outside  the  studio,  except  Mr.  Heinemann,  Mr.  Kennedy, 
and  ourselves.  We  went  to  the  studio,  and  often  he  and  J.  sketched 
together  in  the  streets. 

For  these  sketching  expeditions  Whistler  prepared  beforehand  the 
colours  he  wanted  to  use,  and  if  the  day  turned  out  too  grey  or  too 
radiant  for  his  scheme  nothing  was  done.  The  chosen  colours  were 
mixed,  and  little  tubes,  filled  with  them,  were  carried  in  his  small 
paint-box,  which  held  also  the  tiny  palette  with  the  pure  colours 
arranged  on  it,  his  brushes,  and  two  or  three  small  panels.  Many 
studies  were  made.  The  most  important  was  of  St.  John’s,  West¬ 
minster.  He  loved  the  quiet  corner,  now  destroyed,  and  he  went 
there  many  times.  He  worked  away,  his  top  hat  jammed  down  on 
his  nose,  sitting  on  a  three-legged  stool,  his  paint-box  on  his  knee, 
the  panel  in  it,  beginning  at  once  in  colour  on  the  panel,  usually  finishing 
the  sketch  in  one  afternoon,  though  he  took  two  over  the  church. 
The  painting  was  simply  done,  commencing  with  the  point  of  interest, 
the  masses  put  in  bigiy,  the  details  worked  into  them.  Just  as  in  the 
studio,  five  minutes  after  he  had  begun  he  became  so  absorbed  in  his 
work  that  he  forgot  everything  else  until  it  grew  too  dark  to  see.  When 
ladies  would  come  and  recognise  him,  he  stopped,  got  up,  and  spoke  to 
them,  always  charmingly. 

He  made  little  journeys  during  the  summer,  one  to  Rochester 
and  Canterbury,  with  Mrs.  Whibley  and  Miss  Birnie  Philip.  But, 
disgusted  with  the  inns  and  the  food,  he  came  back  after  a  day  or 
so.  Another  was  with  Mr.  Kennedy,  who  writes  us : 

‘  It  was  agreed  that  Whistler  and  myself  should  go  to  France. 
332  [1896 


THE  CONVALESCENT 

WATER-COLOUR 

In  the  possession  of  Dr.  J.  W.  MacIntyre 


(See  page  271) 


Alone 

Neither  of  us  had  any  idea  where  we  were  going  except  to  Havre 
We  arrived  in  the  early  morning,  and  after  he  got  shaved  and  had  cotiee, 
we  took  the  boat  to  Honfleur,  which,  as  you  know,  has  a  tidal  service. 

‘  Do  you  know  where  we  are  going  ?  ’  I  said  to  him.  1  °>  ’ 

said  he.  ‘Well,’  said  I,  ‘there  is  a  white-whiskered,  respectable- 
looking  old  gentleman  ;  perhaps  he  knows  the  lay  of  the  ground.  1  ip 
him  a  stave.’ 

“  So  Whistler  asked  him  about  the  hotels  in  Honfleur.  There  were 
two — the  Cheval  Blanc  on  the  quay,  and  the  Ferme.de  St.  Simeon 
on  the  outskirts.  The  Cheval  was  so  dirty  that  I  got  the  only  cab, 
and,  piling  the  luggage  on  it  ourselves,  drove  off  to  the  farm,  fortu¬ 
nately,  there  were  two  vacant  rooms,  and  we  stayed  there  a  week. 
The  cooking  was  excellent,  and,  of  course,  Madame  knew  who  Monsteur 
Vistlaire  was.  Whistler  used  to  kick  up  a  row  every  night  with  me 
about  the  ‘  ridiculous  British  ’  to  divert  his  mind,  I  imagine,  and  some¬ 
times  my  retorts  were  so  sharp  that  I  said  to  myself,  ‘  All  is  over  between 
us  now.’  But  he  used  to  bob  up  serenely  in  the  morning,  as  if  nothing 
had  happened,  and  after  dejeuner  he  would  take  his  small  box  o  co  ours 
and  paint  in  the  large  church.  I  used  to  stroll  about  the  town  and  look 
in  occasionally  to  see  that  he  came  to  no  harm  It  was  here  that  he 
said  he  was  going  over  to  Rome  some  day,  and  when  I  said,  Don 
forget  to  let  me  know,  so  that  I  may  be  on  hand  to  see  you  wandering 
up  the  aisle  in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  with  a  candle  in  each  hand,  or 
scrubbing  the  floor!’  he  said,  in  a  tone  of  horrified  astonishment 
‘  Good  God  !  O’K.,*  is  it  possible  ?  Why,  I  thought  they  wou 

make  me  a  hell  of  a  swell  of  an  abbot,  or  something  like  that.’  . 

“  It  was  amusing  to  see  him  manoeuvre  to  get  near  the  big  kitchen 
fire,  overcoat  on.  He  was  a  true  American  in  his  liking  for  heat  an 
the  way  he  would  sidle  into  the  kitchen,  which  opened  on  out-of-doors, 
all  the  time  mildly  flattering  Madame ,  was  very  characteristic.  We 
went  to  Trouville  one  day  on  the  diligence,  and  had  a  capital  dejeuner 
at  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  before  which  Whistler  said,  ‘We  must  do  this 
eH  Prince,  O’K.  !  ’  ‘  All  right,  your  Highness,  I’m  with  you  .  After¬ 

wards,  on  the  beach,  he  went  to  sleep  on  a  chair,  leaning  back  against 

*  Whistler  never  lost  his  fancy  for  inventing  names  for  his  friends,  and  O  K. 
was  the  one  he  found  for  Mr.  Kennedy,  rarely  calling  him  by  any  other  either 
in  conversation  or  correspondence. 

1896] 


333 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

a  bath-house,  his  straw  hat  tipped  on  his  nose.  It  was  funny,  but  sleep 
after  luncheon  was  a  necessity  to  him.  Coming  back  to  London,  in 
the  harbour  of  Southampton,  after  listening  to  the  usual  unwearying 
talk  against  the  British,  I  said,  ‘  Oh,  be  reasonable  !  ’  ‘  Why  should 

I  ?  ’  said  he.” 

The  Ferme  de  St.  Simeon  has  been  called  the  Cradle  of  Impres¬ 
sionism.  It  was  here  that  Boudin  lived  and  most  of  the  Impressionists 
came,  and  round  about  they  found  their  subjects. 

Later  on  Whistler  spent  a  few  days  at  Calais  in  the  Meurice,  Sterne’s 
Hotel,  where  he  was  miserable.  Then  he  tried  to  find  J.  at  Whitby, 
where  they  missed  each  other,  and  where  he  said  the  glitter  of  the 
windows  made  the  town  look  like  the  Crystal  Palace. 

Whistler  recovered  slowly,  and  journeys  helped  him  less  than  work 
in  the  studio,  where,  by  degrees,  he  returned  to  the  schemes  so  sadly 
interrupted.  We  remember  his  coming  to  us  with  Mr.  Kennedy 
one  Sunday  afternoon,  bringing  up  our  three  flights  of  stairs  The 
Master  Smith  to  show  it  to  us  once  again  before  it  went  to  America. 
Mr.  Kennedy  had  captured  it,  fearful  of  a  touch  being  added.  It  was 
placed  on  one  chair,  Whistler,  on  another  facing  it,  wretched  at  the 
thought  of  parting  with  it.  It  was  always  a  wrench  to  let  a  picture  go. 

After  a  while  he  did  not  mind  meeting  a  few  people.  A  man  he 
liked  to  see  was  Timothy  Cole.  There  was  a  great  scheme  that  he 
should  make  a  series  of  drawings  on  wood  and  Cole  engrave  them. 
Cole  brought  the  blocks  prepared  for  him  to  draw  on.  But  that  is 
the  last  we  or  Cole  heard  about  it,  though  we  saw  the  blocks  frequently 
at  Fitzroy  Street.  Mr.  Cole  says : 

“  I  did  not  speak  to  him  more  than  once  after  I  had  given  him  the 
wood  blocks.  I  did  not  think  it  prudent  to  press  him  about  the  matter, 
fearing  he  might  get  disgusted  and  give  it  up.  .  .  .  The  blocks  were 
the  size  of  the  Century  page.” 

Cole  gave  Whistler  some  of  his  prints,  and  they  pleased  Whistler 
very  much,  though  he  rarely  cared  to  own  the  pictures  and  prints  of 
other  artists.  Once  when  an  etcher  gave  him  a  not  very  wonderful 
proof,  he  tore  it  up,  saying,  “  I  do  not  collect  etchings,  I  make  them  ! 

I  do  not  collect  the  works  of  my  contemporaries  !  ”  With  the  exception 
of  his  portrait  by  Boxall  we  never  saw  a  scrap  of  anyone  else’s  work 
about  his  studio  or  his  house,  save  the  forgery  someone  sent  him  which 
334  ll89Q 


Alone 

he  kept  and  hung  for  a  while.  Another  side  to  Mr.  Cole :  was  his 
endless  practical  jokes.  He  used  to  do  extraordinary  things,  to  Whistler  s 
amusement.  On  one  point  only  they  were  not  in  sympathy  .  Mr 
Cole’s  theories  of  diet.  One  evening  at  dinner  Cole  told  us  that  he 
and  his  family  were  living  chiefly  on  rhubarb  tops,  they  have  such 

a  “foody”  taste,  his  son  thought.  “  Dear  me,  poor  fellow,  said 

Whistler,  “  it  sounds  as  if  once,  long  long  ago,  he  had  really  eaten, 
and  still  has  a  dim  memory  of  what  food  is!”  “  And  spinach  Cole 
added  “  it’s  fine.  We  eat  it  raw,  it’s  wonderful  the  things  it  does  for 
you  '  ”  “  But  what  does  it  do  for  you  ?  ”  Whistler  asked,  and  Cole 

began  a  dissertation  on  the  juices  of  the  stomach.  “  Well,  you  know, 
Whistler  told  him,  “  when  you  begin  to  talk  about  the  stomach  and  its 
juices,  it’s  time  to  stop  dining.”  After  that  Cole  managed  to  dismiss 
his  theories  and  dine  like  other  people  when  with  us. 

Professor  John  Van  Dyke  was  in  London  that  fall,  and  Vhis  er 
was  willing  to  come  to  meet  him.  A  long  darn  in  a  tablecloth  after¬ 
wards  bore  witness  to  the  animation  of  one  of  those  dinners— W  hist  er  s 
knife  brought  down  sharply  on  the  table  to  emphasise  his  argument. 
The  subject  was  Las  Mmiftas,  which  he  had  never  seen,  which  everyone 
else  had  seen.  Velasquez  painted  the  picture  just  as  you  see  it,  he 
maintained  ;  no  one  agreed.  Perspectives  and  plans  were  drawn  on 
the  unfortunate  cloth,  chairs  were  pushed  back,  the  situation  grew 
critical.  Whistler  was  forced  to  yield  slowly,  when,  of  a  sudden,,  his 
eyes  fell  on  Van  Dyke’s  feet  in  long,  pointed  shoes,  then  the  American 
fashion,  their  points  carried  to  a  degree  of  fineness  no  English  boot¬ 
maker  could  rival, "  My  God,  Van  Dyke,  where  did  you  get  your  shoes  ? 
Whistler  asked.  We  could  not  go  on  fighting  after  that ;  defeat  was 
avoided.  Though  Whistler  had  never  been  to  Madrid,  it  seemed  as 
if  he  had  seen  the  pictures,  so  familiar  was  he  with  them,  and  though 
he  was  at  times  not  right  about  them,  his  interest  was  endless.  We 
remember  “  Bob  ”  Stevenson  telling  him,  to  his  great  delight,  how, 
one  summer  day  with  J.  in  the  Long  Gallery  of  the  Prado  where  Las 
Meniflas  then  hung,  an  old  peasant  dressed  in  faded  blue-green  came 
and  sat  down  on  the  green  bench  in  front,  and  straightway  he  became 
part  of  the  picture,  so  true  was  its  atmosphere.  There  are  legends 
of  Whistler’s  descent  into  a  Casa  des  Huespedes  in  Madrid  with  Sargent 
and  T  but  J.  never  was  there  and  Sargent  denies  it.  It  is  another 

1896]  335 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

legend.  Whistler  could  get  more  from  a  glance  at  a  photograph  than 
most  painters  from  six  months’  copying. 

Another  evening  Claude  was  the  subject — Claude  compared  to 
Turner.  Whistler  could  never  see  the  master  Englishmen  adored  in 
Turner  ;  not  because  of  Ruskin,  for  Mr.  Walter  Greaves  told  us  that 
years  before  the  Ruskin  trial  Whistler  “reviled  Turner.”  Mr.  Cole 
in  1896  was  engraving  Turners  in  the  National  Gallery,  and  Whistler 
insisted  on  their  inferiority  to  the  Claudes,  so  amazingly  demonstrated 
in  Trafalgar  Square,  where  Turner  invited  the  comparison  disastrous 
to  him.  The  argument  grew  heated,  and  Whistler  adjourned  it  until 
the  next  morning,  when  he  arranged  to  meet  Cole  and  J.  in  the  Gallery. 
Whistler  compared  the  work  of  the  two  artists  hanging  side  by  side, 
as  Turner  wished  : 

“  Well,  you  know,  you  have  only  to  look.  Claude  is  the  artist 
who  knows  there  is  no  painting  the  sun  itself,  and  so  he  chooses  the 
moment  after  the  sun  has  set,  or  has  hid  behind  a  cloud,  and  its  light 
fills  the  sky,  and  that  light  he  suggests  as  no  other  painter  ever  could. 
But  Turner  must  paint  nothing  less  than  the  sun,  and  he  sticks  on  a  blob 
of  paint— let  us  be  thankful  that  it  isn’t  a  red  wafer,  as  in  some  of  his 
other  pictures— and  there  isn’t  any  illusion  whatever,  and  the  English¬ 
man  lifts  up  his  head  in  ecstatic  conceit  with  the  English  painter,  who 
alone  has  dared  to  do  what  no  artist  would  ever  be  fool  enough  to 
attempt  !  And  look  at  the  architecture.  Claude  could  draw  a  classical 
building  as  it  is ;  Turner  must  invent,  imagine  architecture  as  no 
architect  could  design  it,  and  no  builder  could  put  it  up,  and  as  it  never 
would  stand  up— the  old  amateur  !  ” 

They  went  on  to  the  Canalettos  and  Guardis  Whistler  could  not 
weary  of — to  Canaletto’s  big  red  church  and  the  tiny  Rotunda  at  Vauxhall 
with  the  little  figures,  from  which  Hogarth  learned  so  much.  Whistler 
always  acknowledged  Guardi’s  influence,  though  it  had  not  led  him  in 
Venice  to  paint  pictures  like  Guardi  or  Canaletto  either.  And  he 
never  tired  of  pointing  out  that  great  artists  like  Guardi  and  Canaletto 
and  Velasquez,  v/ho  were  born  and  worked  in  the  South,  did  not  try  to 
paint  sunlight,  but  kept  their  work  grey  and  low  in  tone.  That  day  at 
the  National  Gallery,  before  he  could  finish  explaining  the  similarity 
between  his  work  and  Guardi’s,  the  talk  came  to  an  end,  for  half  the 
copyists  in  the  room  had  left  their  easels.  He  stopped.  He  could 
336  [1896 


ANNABEL  LEE 

PASTEL 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 
(See  page  277) 


Alone 

not  talk  to  an  audience  which  he  was  not  sure  was  sympathetic.  Sure 
of  sympathy,  he  would  talk  for  ever  in  praise  of  the  luminosity  of 
Claude,  the  certainty  of  Canaletto,  the  wonderful  tone  of  Guardi, 
the  character  and  colour  of  Hogarth.  Another  Italian  about  whom 
he  was  enthusiastic  was  Michael  Angelo  Caravaggio,  admiring  his  things 
in  the  Louvre.  Whistler  maintained  that  the  exact  knowledge,  the 
science,  of  the  Old  Masters  was  the  reason  of  their  greatness.  The 
modern  painter  has  a  few  tricks,  a  few  fads ;  these  give  out,  and  nothing 
is  left.  Knowledge  is  inexhaustible.  Tintoretto  did  not  find  his  way 
until  he  was  forty.  Titian  was  painting  in  as  masterly  a  manner  in 
his  last  year  as  in  his  youth.  And  speaking  of  the  cleverness— a  term  he 
hated— of  the  modern  man,  he  said  : 

“  Think  of  the  finish,  the  delicacy,  the  elegance,  the  repose  of  a 
little  Terborgh,  Vermeer,  Metsu.  These  were  masters  who  could 
paint  interiors,  chandeliers,  and  all  the  rest  ;  and  what  a  difference 
between  them  and  the  clever  little  interiors  now  !  ” 

In  the  autumn  Whistler  established  Miss  Birnie  Philip  and  her 
mother  in  the  Rue  du  Bac  and  returned  to  Mr.  Heinemann’s  flat  at 
Whitehall  Court,  making  it  so  much  his  home  that  before  long  he  was 
laughingly  alluding  to  “  my  guest  Heinemann.”  It  is  not  likely  that 
the  two  would  ever  have  parted  had  not  Mr.  Heinemann  married, 
and  even  then  Whistler  stayed  with  him  as  long  as  his  health  remained 
good,  dependent  on  the  friendship  formed  late  in  life  with  a  man 
many  years  younger.  When  Mr.  Heinemann  was  away  he  complained 
that  London  was  duller  and  blacker  than  ever.  Whistler  shrank  from 
condolence  in  his  great  grief  or  from  a  revival  of  the  memories  of  those 
terrible  weeks.  His  host  was  careful,  or  we  would  invite  Whistler  to 
us  if  anybody  was  expected  at  Whitehall  Court.  After  three  or  four 
years  Mr.  Heineniann’s  married  life  ended  abruptly,  and  Whistler  at 
once  suggested  that  they  should  go  back  to  the  old  way.  Mr.  Heine - 
mann  took  another  flat  in  Whitehall  Court  with  this  idea.  But  before 
the  plan  could  be  realised  Whistler  died. 

In  the  autumn  of  1896  Mr.  Henry  Savage  Landor,  back  from 
Japan  and  Korea,  also  stayed  with  Mr.  Heinemann  ;  “  a  rare  fellow, 
full  of  real  affection,”  Whistler  said  of  him.  They  sat  up  for  hours 
together  night  after  night.  Whistler  slept  badly,  and  Mr.  Landor 
can  do  with  less  sleep  than  most  people.  There  was  a  skull  in  the 
1896]  Y  337 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

drawing-room  that  Mr.  Landor  tells  us  Whistler  sketched  over  and 
over  again,  while  they  talked  till  morning.  When  they  drew  the  curtains 
it  was  day  ;  then  Whistler  dressed,  breakfasted,  and  went  to  the  studio. 
He  brought  us  stories  of  Mr.  Landor  ;  the  way  in  which  he  would 
start  for  the  ends  of  the  earth  as  if  to  stroll  in  Piccadilly,  “  leaving  the 
costume  of  travel  to  the  Briton  crossing  the  Channel  ”  ;  or,  in  light 
shoes,  “  outwalk  the  stoutest-shod  gillie  over  Scotch  moors.”  Then 
Whistler  brought  us  Mr.  Landor,  with  whom  our  friendship  dates  from 
the  morning  when,  at  Whistler’s  request,  he  sat  Japanese  fashion  on 
the  floor  in  front  of  our  fire,  a  rug  wrapped  round  him  for  kimono, 
and  devoured  imaginary  rice  with  pencils  for  chopsticks.  When  Mr. 
Landor  had  his  horrible  experiences  in  Thibet  and  the  story  of  his 
tortures  was  telegraphed  to  Europe,  Whistler  was  the  first  to  send 
him  a  cable  rejoicing  at  his  escape.  Whistler  also  took  a  fancy  while 
in  Whitehall  Court  to  Mr.  Heinemann’s  brother,  Edmund,  who  was, 
Whistler  said,  “  something  in  the  City,”  who  saw  to  one  or  two  invest¬ 
ments  for  him,  and  whom  he  christened  the  “  Napoleon  of  Finance  ” 
and  described  as  “  sitting  in  a  tangled  web  of  telegraphs  and  telephones.” 
He  never  had  invested  money  before,  and  it  was  with  pride  that  he 
deposited  at  the  bank  his  scrip  and  collected  his  dividends.  To  end 
a  discussion  about  the  City  Mr.  Edmund  Heinemann  once  said  to  him, 
“  You  ain’t  on  the  Stock  Exchange  !  ”  “  Well,”  said  Whistler,  “  you 

just  thank  your  stars,  Eddy,  I  ain’t,  because  if  I  was,  there  wouldn  t 
be  much  room  for  you  !  What  !  ” 

Evening  after  evening  he  would  linger  in  the  studio  until  he  could 
see  no  longer,  keeping  dinner  waiting  at  Whitehall  Court,  so  that  no 
time  could  ever  be  fixed.  Arriving,  he  would  mix  cocktails,  an  art 
in  which  he  excelled  and  must  have  learned  in  the  days  when  he  stayed 
away  from  the  Coast  Survey.  If  it  did  not  suit  him  to  dine  at  Whitehall 
Court  he  would  write  or  wire  to  say  he  could  dine  with  us  if  we  liked ; 
or  that  he  had  amazing  things  to  tell  us,  should  he  come  ?  or  that  he 
was  sure  we  were  both  wanting  to  see  him  ;  or  Heinemann  s  servant, 
Payne,  would  announce  his  coming  ;  or  he  would  drive  straight  from 
the  studio,  reaching  us  sometimes  before  the  notes  he  had  sent,  or  with 
the  wires  unsent  in  his  pocket ;  almost  the  only  time  we  have  known 
him  willingly  not  to  dress  for  dinner.  On  rare  occasions  he  came  in 
after  we  had  dined  demanded  the  fortune  du  pot  of  our  small  establish¬ 
es  t1896 


Alone 

ment,  and  was  content  no  matter  how  meagre  that  fortune  might  prove, 
though  if  it  included  “  a  piece  of  American  cake,”  or  anything  sweet, 
he  was  better  pleased.  He  grumbled  only  over  our  Sunday  supper, 
which  was  cold  in  English  fashion,  out  of  deference  to  Bowen,  our 
old  English  servant.  Then  he  would  bring  Constant,  his  valet,  model, 
and  cook,  to  make  an  onion  soup  or  an  omelette.  Constant  was 
succeeded  by  a  little  Belgian  called  Marie,  who  was  supposed  to  look 
after  the  studio,  and  who,  when  he  stayed  at  Garlant’s  and  we  dined 
with  him  there,  would  be  summoned  to  dress  the  salad  and  make  the 
coffee.  It  was  not  long  after  this  that,  by  the  doctor’s  advice  he  gave 
up  coffee  and  stopped  smoking  too.  Few  men  ever  ate  less  than  Whistler, 
but  few  were  more  fastidious  about  what  they  did  eat.  He  made  the 
best  of  our  English  cooking  while  it  lasted,  but  he  was  glad  when  Bowen 
was  replaced  by  Louise  and  then  Augustine,  who  were  French  and  who 
could  make  the  soups,  salads,  and  dishes  he  liked,  and  who  did  not 
hesitate  to  scold  him  when  he  was  late  and  ruined  the  dinner. 

These  meetings  must  have  been  pleasant  to  Whistler  as  to  us , 
there  were  weeks  when  he  came  every  evening.  On  his  arrival  he  might 
be  silent,  but  after  his  nap  he  would  begin  talking,  and  his  talk  was 
as  good  on  the  last  evening  with  us  as  on  the  first.  We  shall  always 
regret  that  we  made  no  notes  of  what  he  said,  though  the  charm  of  his 
talk  would  have  eluded  a  shorthand  reporter.  Much  can  never  be 
forgotten.  In  “  surroundings  of  antagonism  ”  he  wrapped  this  talk 
as  well  as  himself  in  “  a  species  of  misunderstanding  ”  and  deliberately 
mystified,  bewildered,  and  aggravated  the  company.  But  when  disguise 
was  not  necessary,  and  he  talked  at  his  ease,  he  impressed  everyone 
with  his  sanity  of  judgment,  breadth  of  interest,  and  keenness  of  intellect. 
His  reading  was  extensive,  though  we  never  ceased  to  wonder  when  he 
found  time  for  it,  save  during  sleepless  nights.  His  talk  abounded  in 
quotations,  especially  from  the  Bible,  that  “  splendid  mine  of  invective,” 
he  described  it.  His  diversity  of  knowledge  was  as  unexpected  as  his 
extensive  reading,  and  we  felt  that  he  knew  things  intuitively  just 
as  by  some  uncanny  faculty  he  heard  everything  said  about  him.  When 
he  chose  he  held  the  floor  and  was  then  at  his  best.  I  am  not  arguing 
with  you,  I  am  telling  you,”  he  would  say,  and  he  would  lose  his  temper, 
which  was  violent  as  ever,  but  he  was  friendlier  than  before  when  it 
was  over.  He  liked  to  hear  the  last  gossip,  and  reproached  us  if  we  had 

1896]  339 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

none  for  him.  More  than  once  he  told  E.  her  discretion  amounted 
positively  to  indiscretion  ;  he  was  sure  she  had  a  cupboard  full  of 
skeletons,  and  some  day,  when  she  was  pulling  the  strings  of  one  care¬ 
fully  to  put  it  back  in  place,  the  whole  lot  would  come  rattling  down 
about  her  ears.  And  so,  the  shadow  of  sorrow  in  the  background, 
the  evenings  went  by  that  winter  in  the  little  dining-room  which 
had  been  Etty’s  studio  where  the  huge  Edinburgh  pictures  were 
painted. 

The  Eden  affair  was  still  dragging  on,  and  Whistler  was  disgusted 
to  find  English  artists  as  afraid  to  support  him  as  at  the  Ruskin  trial. 
One  day  in  Bond  Street  he  met  a  Follower,  just  returned  to  town, 
arm-on-arm  with  “  the  Baronet.”  The  Follower  at  once  left  a  card 
at  Fitzroy  Street.  Whistler  wrote  “  Judas  Iscariot  on  it  and  sent 
it  back  to  him.  A  few  weeks  later  the  New  English  Art  Club  hung 
Sir  William  Eden’s  work,  and  with  it,  he  said,  “  their  shame,  upon 
their  walls.”  He  complimented  them,  much  to  their  discomfort,  on 
their  appetite  for  “  toad.”  To  clear  the  air,  which  had  become  sultry 
in  the  art  clubs  and  studios,  we  invited  Professor  Fred  Brown  and  Dr. 
D.  S.  MacColl  to  meet  him  one  evening  at  dinner,  and  discuss  things. 
Professor  Brown  had  another  engagement.  Dr.  MacColl  came,  and 
Whistler,  v/ho  did  not  mind  how  hard  a  man  fought  if  he  fought  at  all, 
continued  on  terms  with  him.  But  the  New  English  Art  Club  he 
never  forgave. 

A  show  of  J.’s  lithographs  of  Granada  and  the  Alhambra  was 
arranged  at  the  Fine  Art  Society’s  during  December  1896,  and  for  the 
catalogue  Whistler  wrote  an  introductory  note,  and  another  for  a  show 
of  Phil  May’s  drawings  in  the  same  gallery.  He  designed  the  cover 
for  Mr,  Charles  Whibley’s  Book  of  Scoundrels ,  and  also  two  covers  for 
novels  by  Miss  Elizabeth  Robins,  Below  the  Salt,  for  which  he  drew 
a  silver  ship,  and  The  Open  Question,  for  which  he  devised  shields; 
all  three  books  published  by  Mr.  Heinemann.  The  design  for  the 
Book  of  Scoundrels  was  a  gallows,  drawn  in  thin  lines,  with  rope  and 
noose  attached.  Henley,  to  whom  it  was  shown,  asked  whether  the 
gallows  should  not  have  been  drawn  with  a  support.  Whistler’s 
comment  was  :  “  Well,  you  know,  that’s  the  usual  sort  of  gallows,  but 
this  one  will  do.  It  will  hang  all  of  us.  Just  like  Henley’s  selfishness 
to  want  a  strong  one  !  ”  an  allusion  to  Henley’s  size. 

340 


[1896 


WHISTLER  AT  HIS  PRINTING  PRESS  IN  THE  STUDIO, 
RUE  NOTRE-DAME-DES-CHAMPS 
From  a  photograph  by  M,  Dornac 


(See  page  308) 


Alone 


During  the  winter  Whistler  met  Sir  Seymour  Haden  for  the  last 
time  at  a  dinner  given  by  the  Society  of  Illustrators  (of  which  both 
were  Vice-Presidents)  to  Mr.  Alfred  Parsons,  on  his  election  to  the 
Royal  Academy.  It  was  Whistler’s  first  appearance  in  public  since 
his  wife’s  death,  and  as  we  had  persuaded  him  to  go,  never  antici¬ 
pating  any  such  meeting,  we  were  annoyed  to  think  that  we  had  exposed 
him  to  the  unpleasantness  of  it,  or  Haden  either,  for  we  had  had  no 
part  in  their  quarrels.  However,  as  soon  as  Whistler  saw  Haden  he 
woke  up  and  began  to  enjoy  himself.  His  laugh  carried  far.  Haden 
heard  it,  and  may  have  seen  the  three  monocles  on  the  dinner-table. 
He  looked  toward  the  laugh,  dropped  his  spoon  in  his  soup-plate,  and 
left.  Later  Whistler  was  called  upon  to  make  a  speech  and  could  not 
get  out  of  it.  But  it  was  an  anti-climax.  The  event  of  the  dinner 
was  over. 

At  Christmas  he  went  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  T.  Fisher  Unwin  and 
ourselves  to  Bournemouth,  where  our  hotel  was  an  old-fashioned  inn, 
selected  from  the  guide-book  because  it  was  the  nearest  to  the  sea.  We 
breakfasted  in  our  rooms,  we  met  at  lunch  to  order  dinner,  and  the  rest 
of  the  day  Whistler  insisted  must  be  spent  getting  an  appetite  for  it— 
wandering  on  the  cliffs,  he  with  his  little  paint-box.  But  the  sea  was 
on  the  wrong  side,  the  wind  blew  the  wrong  way,  he  could  do  nothing. 
Some  days  we  took  long  drives.  One  damp,  cold,  cheerless  afternoon 
we  stopped  at  a  small  inn  in  Poole.  The  landlord,  watching  Whistler 
sip  his  hot  whisky  and  water,  was  convinced  he  was  somebody,  but  was 
unable  to  place  him.  “And  who  do  you  suppose  I  am  ?  ”  Whistler 
asked  at  last.  “  I  can’t  exactly  say,  sir,  but  I  should  fancy  you  was 
from  the  ’Alls  !  ”  Aubrey  Beardsley  was  then  at  Boscombe,  a  further 
stage  in  his  brave  fight  with  death,  and  we  went  to  see  him.  But  the 
sight  of  the  suffering  of  others  was  too  cruel  a  reminder  to  Whistler, 
and  he  shrank  from  going  to  Beardsley. 

Dinner  was  the  event  of  the  day,  and  it  would  have  proved  a  disaster 
had  Whistler  not  seen  humour  in  being  expected  to  eat  it,  so  little 
was  it  what  he  thought  a  dinner  should  be.  On  Christmas  Day  he 
was  melancholy  and  stared  at  the  turkey  and  bread  sauce,  the  sodden 
potatoes  and  soaked  greens  :  “To  think  of  my  beautiful  room  in  the 
Rue  du  Bac,  and  the  rest  of  them  there,  eating  their  Christmas  dinner, 
having  up  my  wonderful  old  Pouilly  from  my  cellar.” 

1896]  34* 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

But  we  had  something  else  to  talk  about.  In  the  Saturday  Review 
of  that  week,  December  26,  there  was  an  article,  signed  Walter 
Sickert,  that  was  of  interest  to  us  all. 


CHAPTER  XL:  THE  LITHOGRAPH  CASE.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SIX  AND  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SEVEN. 

Mr.  Sickert’s  article  was  ostensibly  inspired  by  the  show  of  J.’s 
lithographs  of  Granada  at  the  Fine  Art  Society’s,  which  Whistler  had 
introduced.  Whistler  understood  it  to  be  an  attack  upon  himself,  as 
well  as  upon  J.,  whose  lithographs  alone  it  pretended  to  deal  with.  As 
a  rule,  Whistler’s  lithographs  were  made  on  lithographic  paper  and 
transferred  to  the  stone.  The  article  argued  that  to  pass  off  drawings 
made  on  paper  as  lithographs  was  as  misleading  to  “  the  purchaser  on 
the  vital  point  of  commercial  value  ”  as  to  sell  photogravures  for 
etchings,  which,  when  Sir  Hubert  Herkomer  had  done  so,  led  to  a 
protest  from  J.  and  Whistler,  and  also  from  Mr.  Sickert,  whose  con¬ 
demnation  had  been  strong.  The  article,  therefore,  was  written 
either  ignorantly  or  maliciously,  for  no  such  distinction  in  lithography 
has  ever  been  made.  Transfer-paper  is  as  old  as  Senefelder,  the  inventor 
of  lithography,  who  looked  upon  it  as  the  most  important  part  of  his 
invention.  The  comment  amounted  to  a  charge  of  dishonesty,  and  an 
apology  was  demanded  by  J.  The  apology  was  refused  by  Mr.  Frank 
Harris,  editor  of  the  Saturday  Review,  and  consequently  Messrs.  Lewis 
and  Lewis  brought  an  action  for  libel  against  writer  and  editor. 

The  action  stood  in  J.’s  name,  and  Whistler  was  the  principal  witness. 
In  the  hope  that  the  matter  might  be  settled  by  an  apology  and  without 
appeal  to  the  law,  Mr.  Heinemann  arranged  a  meeting  between  the 
editor  of  the  Saturday  Review  and  Whistler,  but  nothing  came  of  it. 
People  who  knew  nothing  of  lithography  got  involved  in  the  case,  and 
our  friend  Harold  Frederic,  for  one,  entangled  himself  with  the  enemy. 
Others  were  found  to  know  a  great  deal  whom  we  never  suspected  of 
knowing  anything,  and  through  Whistler  we  discovered  that  Mr. 
Alfred  Gilbert  started  life  as  a  lithographer,  was  indignant  with  the 
Saturday  Review,  and  only  too  willing  to  offer  his  help  to  us.  Meetings 
followed  on  Sunday  evenings  in  the  huge  Maida  Vale  house  where  Mr. 
342  [1896 


The  Lithograph  Case 


Gilbert  was  trying  to  revive  mediaeval  relations  between  master  and 
workman  and  live  the  life  of  a  craftsman  with  pupils  and  assistants, 
a  brave  experiment  which  ended  in  failure. 

The  case  was  fixed  for  April  1897,  the  most  inconvenient  time  of 
the  year  for  the  artist  who  exhibits.  Whistler  was  working  on  the 
portrait  of  Miss  Kinsella,  and  he  had  promised  three  pictures  to  the 
Salon  :  Green  and  Violet ,  Rose  and  Gold ,  and  a  Nocturne.  M.  Helleu, 
who  was  in  London,  catalogued  and  measured  them,  reserving  space  on 
the  wall.  Only  a  few  days  before  sending  in  were  left  and  the  work 
would  never  be  done  in  time.  Whistler  was  in  despair.  It  was  then,  too, 
he  learned  that  C.  E.  Holloway,  a  distinguished  artist  whom  the  world 
never  knew,  was  ill  in  his  studio  near  by.  Holloway  was  anything  but 
a  successful  man,  and  Whistler  was  shocked  to  find  him  in  bed,  lacking 
every  comfort.  He  provided  doctors,  nurses,  medicine,  and  food, 
and  looked  after  the  dying  man’s  family.  He  spent  afternoons  in 
Holloway’s  tiny  bedroom.  All  this  took  up  time  and  made  it  difficult 
to  get  his  pictures  ready  for  the  Salon. 

He  called  one  morning  on  his  way  to  the  studio  to  tell  us  of  the 
death  of  Holloway.  He  was  going  to  the  funeral,  and  suggested  a  fund 
to  purchase  some  of  the  pictures  and  give  the  proceeds  to  the  family. 
He  was  nervous  and  worried,  the  Salon  clamouring  for  his  work  on  the 
one  hand,  the  trial  claiming  him  on  the  other.  People,  he  complained, 
did  not  seem  to  understand  the  importance  of  his  time.  Things  were 
amazing  in  the  studio,  and  he  was  expected  to  leave  them  just  to  go  into 
court.  No,  he  wouldn’t,  that  was  the  end  of  it.  The  pictures  must 
be  finished.  J.  said  to  him  :  “  The  case  is  as  much  yours  as  mine, 
and  you  must  come.  Your  reputation  is  involved.  There  will  be 
an  end  to  your  lithography  if  we  lose.  You  must  fight.” 

Whistler  liked  one  the  better  for  the  contradiction  he  was  supposed 
unable  to  bear,  and  he  answered  :  “  Well,  you  know,  but  really— why, 
of  course,  Joseph,  it’s  all  right.  Pm  coming  ;  of  course,  we’ll  fight 
it  through  together.  I  never  meant  not  to.  That’s  all  right.” 

And  to  E.,  who  went  with  him  to  the  “  Temple  of  Pomona  ”  in 
the  Strand,  to  order  flowers  for  Holloway,  he  kept  saying  :  “  You 
know,  really,  Joseph  mustn’t  talk  like  that  !  Of  course,  it’s  all  right. 
Of  course,  I  never  meant  not  to  come.  You  must  tell  him  it’s  all 
right.  I  never  back  out  !  ” 

1897] 


343 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

His  work  stopped.  His  pictures  did  not  go  to  Paris.  He  stood 
by  us. 

The  case  was  tried  in  the  King’s  Bench  Division  on  April  5,  before 
Mr.  Justice  Mathew.  We  were  represented  by  Sir  Edward  Clarke,  Q.C., 
and  Mr.  Eldon  Bankes.  Whistler  arrived  early.  In  the  great  hall  he 
met  the  counsel  for  the  other  side,  Mr.  Bigham,  an  acquaintance,  and, 
leaning  on  his  arm,  entered  the  court,  “  capturing  the  enemy’s  counsel 
on  the  way,”  he  said,  as  he  sat  down  between  us  and  Sir  George 
Lewis.  The  counsel  are  now  both  judges. 

J.,  in  the  witness-box,  pointed  out  that  he  had  made  lithographs 
both  on  paper  and  on  stone  ;  that  there  was  no  difference  between  them, 
an  historical  fact  which  he  was  able  to  prove  ;  that  for  the  defendants 
to  deny  that  a  lithograph  made  on  paper  was  as  much  a  lithograph  as  a 
lithograph  made  on  stone  showed  that  they  knew  nothing  about  the 
subject,  or  else  were  acting  out  of  malice. 

Whistler  was  called  next.  He  said  his  grievance  was  the  accusation 
that  he  pursued  the  same  evil  practice.  He  was  asked  by  Mr.  Bigham 
if  he  was  very  angry  with  Mr.  Sickert,  and  he  replied  he  might  not 
be  angry  with  Mr.  Sickert,  but  he  was  disgusted  that  “  distinguished 
people  like  Mr.  Pennell  and  myself  are  attacked  by  an  absolutely  un¬ 
known  authority  (Mr.  Sickert),  an  insignificant  and  irresponsible  person.” 

“Then,”  said  Mr.  Bigham,  “Mr.  Sickert  is  an  insignificant  and 
irresponsible  person  who  can  do  no  harm  ?  ” 

Whistler  answered  :  “  Even  a  fool  can  do  harm,  and  if  any  harm  is 
done  to  Mr.  Pennell  it  is  done  to  me.  This  is  a  question  for  all  artists.” 
And  he  added  that  Mr.  Sickert’s  “pretended  compliments  and 
flatteries  were  a  most  impertinent  piece  of  insolence,  tainted  with  a 
certain  obsequious  approach.” 

Further  asked  if  this  was  his  action,  he  said  :  “  I  am  afraid  if 
Mr.  Pennell  had  not  taken  these  proceedings,  I  should.” 

“  You  are  working  together  then  ?  ” 

No,  we  are  on  the  same  side.” 

“  Are  you  bearing  any  part  of  the  costs  ?  ” 

“  No,  but  I  am  quite  willing.” 

Sir  Edward  Clarke  then  interposed  and  asked  if  there  was  any  founda¬ 
tion  for  that  question. 

“  Only  the  lightness  and  delicacy  of  the  counsel’s  suggestion.” 

[1897 


344 


PORTRAIT  OF  MISS  KINSELLA 
THE  IRIS,  ROSE  AND  GREEN 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Miss  Kinsella 
(See  page  321) 


The  Lithograph  Case 

At  the  end  of  the  cross-examination  Whistler  adjusted  his  eye-glass, 
put  his  hat  on  the  rail  of  the  witness-box,  slowly  pulled  off  one  glove 
after  the  other.  He  turned  to  the  judge  and  said  :  '■M 

“  And  now,  my  Lord,  may  I  tell  you  why  we  are  all  here  ?  ”  i  1 

"  No,  Mr.  Whistler,”  said  his  Lordship;  "  we  are  all  here  because 
we  cannot  help  it.” 

1  Whistler  left  the  box.  What  he  meant  to  say  no  one  will  ever  know. 
We  asked  him  later.  He  shook  his  head.  The  moment  for  saying  it 
had  passed. 

Sir  Sidney  Colvin,  Keeper  of  the  Print  Room  of  the  British 
Museum ;  Mr.  Strange,  of  the  Art  Library,  South  Kensington  ; 
Mr.  Way  and  Mr.  Goulding,  professional  lithographic  printers;  and 
Mr.  Alfred  Gilbert  were  our  witnesses. 

Mr.  Bigham  said  that  the  case  was  a  storm  in  a  teacup  blown  up  by 
Whistler,  and  that  the  article  could  do  no  harm  to  anybody. 

Mr.  Sickert  protested  that  he  was  familiar  with  all  the  processes 
of  lithography  ;  that  the  plaintiff’s  lithographs  were  not  lithographs, 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  mere  transfers.  He  had  submitted  the  article 
to  another  paper,  which  refused  it  before  it  was  accepted  by  the  Saturday 
Review.  He  had  been  under  the  impression  that  the  plaintiff  would 
like  a  newspaper  correspondence.  He  was  actuated  by  a  pedantic 
purism.  Cross-examined  by  Sir  Edward  Clarke,  he  had  to  admit  by 
implication  that  he  intended  to  charge  the  plaintiff  with  dishonest 
practices,  and  that  he  had  caught  Mr.  Pennell,  the  purist,  tripping.  He 
had  to  admit  that  the  only  lithograph  he  ever  published  was  made  in  the 
same  way,  and  he  had  called  it,  or  allowed  it  to  be  called,  a  lithograph. 

Mr.  Sickert’s  witnesses  scarcely  helped  him.  Mr.  C.  H.  Shannon’s 
testimony  was  more  favourable  to  us  than  to  him.  Mr.  Rothenstein 
testified  that  all  the  lithographs  he  had  published  were  done  exactly 
as  Whistler  and  J.  had  done  theirs,  and  as  he  came  out  of  the  box  fell  into 
his  hat.  Mr.  George  Moore  solemnly  proclaimed  that  he  knew  nothing 
about  lithographs,  but  that  he  knew  Degas.  “  What’s  Degas  ?  ” 
roared  the  judge,  thinking  some  new  process  was  being  sprung  on  him, 
and  Mr.  Moore  vanished.  The  editor  of  the  Saturday  Review  acknow¬ 
ledged  that  he  had  published  an  illustrated  supplement  full  of  litho¬ 
graphs  done  on  transfer-paper  and  advertised  by  him  as  lithographs ; 
that  he  had  not  known  what  was  in  Mr.  Sickert’s  article  until  it  appeared 
1897J  3+1 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

The  judge,  in  summing  up,  said  that  a  critic  might  express  a  most 
disparaging  opinion  on  an  artist’s  work  and  might  refer  to  him  in  the 
most  disagreeable  terms,  but  he  must  not  attribute  to  the  artist  dis¬ 
creditable  conduct,  unless  he  could  prove  that  his  charge  was  true. 
If  the  jury  thought  the  criticism  merely  sharp  and  exaggerated,  they 
would  find  a  verdict  for  the  defendant,  but  if  not— that  is,  if  it  was  more 
than  this— -they  should  consider  to  what  damages  the  plaintiff  was 
entitled.  The  verdict  was  for  the  plaintiff —damages  fifty  pounds,  not 
a  high  estimate  of  the  value  of  artistic  morality  on  the  part  of  the  British 
jury,  but  at  least,  in  so  far  as  it  carried  costs,  higher  than  the  estimate 
put  upon  Whistler’s  work  in  the  Ruskin  trial. 

So  convinced  were  the  other  side  of  a  verdict  in  their  favour  that 
a  rumour  reached  us  of  a  luncheon  ordered  beforehand  at  the  Savoy, 
on  the  second  day,  by  the  editor  of  the  Saturday  Review  to  celebrate 
our  defeat.  We  waited  to  be  sure.  Then  we  carried  off  Whistler, 
Mr.  Reginald  Poole,  who  had  conducted  the  case  for  us,  and  Mr. 
Jonathan  Sturges  to  the  Caf6  Royal  for  our  breakfast.  Whistler  was 
jubilant,  and  nothing  pleased  him  more  than  the  deference  of  the 
foreman  of  the  jury,  who  waylaid  him  to  shake  hands  at  the  close  of  the 
trial.  And  since  then  no  incautious  British  artists  or  critics  have  dared 
to  tamper  with  Senefelder’s  definition  of  lithography. 


CHAPTER  XLI :  THE  END  OF  THE  EDEN  CASE.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SEVEN  TO  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-NINE. 

After  our  triumph  Whistler  went  to  Paris  and  Boldini  painted  his 
portrait,  shown  in  the  International  Exhibition  of  1900.  It  was  done 
in  a  very  few  sittings.  Mr.  Kennedy,  who  went  with  Whistler,  says 
that  Boldini  worked  rapidly,  that  Whistler  got  tired  of  doing  what  he  had 
made  other  people  do  all  his  life — pose — and  took  naps.  During  one 
of  these  Boldini  made  a  dry-point  on  a  zinc  plate.  Whistler  did  not 
like  it,  nor  did  he  like  any  better  Helleu’s  done  at  the  same  time.  Of 
the  painting  Whistler  said  to  us,  “  They  say  that  looks  like  me,  but  I 
hope  I  don’t  look  like  that  !  ”  It  is,  however,  a  presentment  of  him 
in  his  worst  mood,  and  Mr.  Kennedy  remembers  that  he  was  in  his  worst 
mood  all  the  while.  It  is  the  Whistler  whom  the  world  knew  and  feared. 
346  [1897 


The  End  of  the  Eden  Case 


When  Whistler  came  back  to  London,  in  May  or  June,  he  went  to 
Garlant’s  Hotel,  where  Kennedy  was  staying.  Mr.  Kennedy’s  relations 
with  Whistler  commenced  by  his  selling  Whistler’s  prints  and  pictures 
in  New  York,  and  then  developed  into  an  intimate  friendship,  which 
continued  until  almost  the  end  of  Whistler’s  life.  Kennedy  was  one 
of  Whistler’s  champions  in  America,  devoted  and  loyal,  though  the 
friendship  ended  rather  abruptly  through  a  regrettable  misunderstand¬ 
ing.  After  Whistler’s  death,  Kennedy  was  mainly  responsible  for  the 
Grolier  Club  exhibition  and  catalogue. 

This  summer  Whistler  went  to  Hampton,  where  Mr.  Heinemann 
had  taken  a  cottage.  Whistler  never  liked  the  country,  but,  he  said, 
“  I  suppose  now  we’ll  have  to  fish  for  the  little  gudgeon  together  from 
a  chair,  with  painted  corks,  like  the  other  Britons.” 

He  took  part  in  the  fun.  He  went  to  regattas,  picnicked,  and  was 
rowed  and  punted  about.  At  Hampton  he  met  Mr.  William  Nicholson, 
whom  Mr.  Heinemann  had  asked  down  with  the  idea  of  his  adding 
a  portrait  of  Whistler  to  the  series  that  began  with  his  woodcut  of 
Queen  Victoria  in  the  New  Review.  Later  Mr.  Nicholson,  in  the 
Fitzroy  Street  studio,  made  a  study  of  Whistler  in  evening  dress, 
recalling  the  Sarasate,  and  it  appeared  in  the  Review. 

It  was  the  summer  of  Queen  Victoria’s  Diamond  jubilee.  Whistler 
could  not  come  to  us  from  Garlant’s  without  passing  through  streets 
hung  with  tawdry  wreaths  and  draggled  festoons ;  Trafalgar  Square 
buried  in  platforms,  seats,  and  advertisements,  Nelson  on  his  column 
peering  above.  The  decorations  were  an  unfailing  amusement  to 
him,  an  excuse  for  an  estimate  of  “  the  Island  and  the  Islander,”  and 
the  talk  about  the  British,  an  annoyance,  we  are  afraid,  to  some  of  his 
friends  and  more  of  his  enemies.  One  evening  he  sketched  for  us  his 
impression  of  the  Square,  with  Nelson  “boarded  at  last.”  “You 
see,”  he  said,  “  England  expects  every  Englishman  to  be  ridiculous,” 
and  the  sketch  appeared  in  the  Daily  Chronicle. 

He  again  went  to  the  Naval  Review,  and  this  time  saw  it  from  Mr. 
George  Vanderbilt’s  yacht.  No  etchings  were  made,  though  we 
believe  he  did  a  water-colour  or  pastel.  Instead,  he  wrote  some  of 
his  saddest  letters,  yet  he  said  with  a  gleam  of  glee  :  “It  was  wonderful, 
just  like  Spain,  just  like  Velasquez  at  some  great  function,  for  there 
was  Philip,”  whom  Mr.  Vanderbilt  resembled,  as  the  portrait  proved 
1897] 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

till  he  changed  and  ruined  it.  "  There  was  the  Queen,  Mrs. 
Vanderbilt ;  there  was  I,  the  Court  Painter,  and,  why,  even  the 
dwarfs,”  as  he  described  appropriately  two  well-known  Americans  on 
board. 

In  July  we  proposed  to  cycle  across  France  to  Switzerland,  and  the 
night  before  we  started  Whistler,  M.  Boldini,  and  Mr.  Kennedy  dined 
with  us  to  say  good-bye.  Boldini  was  leaving  London  the  next  day, 
and  by  the  end  of  the  evening  Whistler  made  up  his  mind  to  come  as 
far  as  Dieppe,  and  as  he  would  never,  if  he  could  help  it,  go  alone,  he 
decided  that  Mr.  Kennedy  must  come  too.  Next  morning  we  all 
arrived  at  the  station  save  Whistler.  Even  his  baggage  came,  but  not 
till  we  were  reduced  almost  to  nervous  collapse,  not  till  the  train  was 
starting,  did  he  saunter  unmoved— his  straw  hat  over  his  eyes — down 
the  platform,  followed  humbly  by  the  pompous  station-master  and 
amazed  porters,  looking  for  our  carriage.  No  sooner  had  we  started 
than  he  was  in  the  best  of  spirits  and  enjoyed  every  minute  of  the 
journey,  most  when  on  the  boat  he  found  a  camp  of  enemies  also  on 
the  way  to  Dieppe,  to  his  delight  and  their  discomfort.  At  Dieppe 
we  had  to  get  our  bicycles  through  the  customs,  the  others  took  a  cab, 
and  when  we  reached  the  hotel  we  were  received  regally  and  given  a 
whole  suite,  Boldini  having  hinted  to  the  patron  we  were  royalty 
travelling  incognito,  they  in  attendance.  Almost  at  once  Whistler 
got  out  his  little  colour-box  and  started  for  a  shop  front  in  a  narrow 
street  he  knew.  But  first  he  had  to  find  another  kind  of  shop  where  he 
could  buy  a  rosette  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  for  his  had  been  lost  or 
forgotten,  and  he  would  have  thought  it  wanting  in  respect  to  appear 
without  it  in  France.  The  shopkeeper,  to  whom  he  explained,  said, 
“  All  right,  monsieur,  here  is  the  rosette,  but  I  have  heard  that  story 
before.”  Whistler  was  furious,  but  in  the  end  had  to  laugh.  His 
dread  of  illness  was  again  shown,  for  Beardsley,  dying,  was  in  the  town, 
and  without  knowing  it  we  passed  his  window  and  Beardsley  saw  us. 
When  afterwards  we  called,  Whistler  refused  to  come,  and  it  was  well 
he  did.  Beardsley,  however,  was  not  the  only  person  in  Dieppe 
Whistler  would  not  meet. 

We  had  only  our  cycling  costumes,  we  were  staying  at  the  ..Hotel 
Royal.  When  he  came  down  to  dinner,  very  late  of  course,  he  was 
correct  in  evening  dress,  the  rosette  in  place,  and  we  thought  there 
348  [1897 


[See  page  322) 


THE  SMITH 
PASSAGE  DU  DRAGON 
LITHOGRAPH.  W.  73 


The  End  of  the  Ed.en  Case 

was  a  suggestion  of  hesitation,  but  it  was  only  a  suggestion.  He  gave 
his  arm  to  E.,  who  was  in  short  cycling  skirt,  J.  in  knickerbockers,  and 
as  we  went  into  the  dining-room  he  turned  to  her,  and,  to  a  question 
that  had  never  been  asked,  answered  clearly,  “  Mais  out,  Princess?  ” 
and  after  that  he  had  all  the  attention  he  wanted.  Every  tourist 
stared,  and  we  were  escorted  to  our  seats  by  the  -patron ,  and  for  the 
rest  of  the  evening,  when  he  was  not  talking  to  the  Princess e,  he  was 
giving  good  advice  to  the  head  waiter.  The  evening  and  the  night 
were  diversified  periodically  by  Boldini’s  practical  jokes,  which  did  not 
keep  Whistler  from  being  down  early  in  the  morning  to  see  us  off. 
“  Well,  you  know,  can’t  I  hold  something  ?  ”  he  offered,  as  E.  mounted 
her  bicycle,  and  as  he  watched  us  wheel  along  the  sea-front,  he  told 
Mr.  Kennedy,  “  After  all,  O’K.,  .  .  .  there’s  something  in  it  !  ”  We 
asked  Mr.  Kennedy  to  pay  our  bill,  and  M,  Boldini  had  some  trouble 
with  his.  The  result  was  that  when  Whistler  and  Kennedy  counted 
up  their  joint  funds,  they  found  they  had  just  about  enough  money 
to  get  back  to  London,  and  they  left. 

In  the  autumn  Whistler  was  in  Paris,  the  Eden  case  in  the  Cour  de 
Cassation  being  fixed  for  November  17.  It  was  heard  before  President 
Perivier,  Maitre  Beurdeley  for  the  second  time  defending  Whistler. 
Mr.  Heinemann  came  from  London,  and  was  with  him  in  court. 
Judgment  was  given  on  December  2.  The  affair  had  been  talked  about, 
and  the  court  was  crowded.  The  judgment  went  as  entirely  in  Whistler’s 
favour  as,  in  the  Lower  Court,  it  had  gone  against  him.  He  was  to 
keep  the  picture,  on  condition  that  he  made  it  unrecognisable  as  a 
portrait  of  Lady  Eden,  which  had  been  done  ;  Sir  William  Eden  was 
to  have  the  hundred  guineas  back,  which  already  had  been  returned 
and  5  per  cent,  interest ;  Whistler  was  to  pay  one  thousand  francs 
damages  with  interest  and  the  cost  of  the  first  trial,  and  “  the  Baronet” 
to  pay  the  costs  of  appeal.  Mr.  MacMonnies,  who  also  was  with 
Whistler  in  court,  remembers  that  “  it  was  decided  by  the  judges  that 
the  picture  should  be  produced  when  needed.  Mr.  Whistler  whispered 
in  my  ear,  ‘  MacMonnies,  take  the  picture  and  get  out  with  it.’  As 
we  sat  under  the  judges’  noses,  and  the  court-room  was  packed  with 
admirers  and  enemies  and  court  officials,  I  made  a  distinct  spot  as  I 
walked  down  the  aisle  with  the  picture  under  my  arm.  And  Whistler 
showed  his  admirable  generalship  in  the  case,  as  not  one  of  the  gendarmes 
1897]  Uq 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

could  stop  me.  So  all  anybody  could  do  was  to  watch,  it  disappear 
out  of  the  door.” 

Whistler  said  to  us  that  the  Procureur  de  la  Repuhlique  was  splendid  ; 
that  the  whole  affair  was  a  public  recognition  of  his  position  ;  that  the 
trial  made  history,  established  a  precedent,  proving  the  right  of  the 
artist  to  his  own  work  ;  that  a  new  clause  had  been  added  to  the  Code 
Napoleon  ;  that  he  had  “  wiped  up  the  floor  ’’with  “  the  Baronet  ”  before 
all  Paris,  his  intention  from  the  first.  He  wished  it  to  be  known  that 
in  the  law  of  France  he  would  go  down  with  Napoleon  : 

“  Well,  you  know,  take  my  word  for  it,  Joseph,  the  first  duty  of  a 
good  general  when  he  has  won  his  battle  is  to  say  so,  otherwise  the  people, 
always  dull— the  Briton  especially— fail  to  understand,  and  it  is  an 
unsettled  point  in  history  for  ever.  Victory  is  not  complete  until 
the  wounded  are  looked  after  and  the  dead  counted.” 

The  trial  over,  he  wanted  immediately  to  make  a  beautiful  little 
book  of  it,  and  he  began  to  arrange  the  report  with  his  “Reflec¬ 
tions  ”  for  publication.  During  many  months  proofs  of  The  Baronet  and 
the  Butterfly  filled  his  pockets.  As  he  had  read  pages  of  The  T en  O'1  Clock 
to  Mr.  Alan  S.  Cole,  so  he  read  pages  of  The  Baronet  and  the  Butterfly 
to  us,  and  sometimes  to  the  Council  of  the  International  after  the 
meetings,  a  mistake,  for  there  were  members  who  had  not  the  intelligence 
to  understand  it  or  him.  His  care  was  no  less  than  with  The  Gentle  Art. 
Every  note,  every  Butterfly,  was  thought  out  and  placed  properly. 

“  Beautiful,  you  know.  Isn’t  it  beautiful  ?  ”  he  would  say,  when  a 
page  or  a  paragraph  pleased  him,  and  nothing  pleased  him  more  than 
the  Butterfly  following  the  “  Reflection  ”  on  page  43.  There  he  quotes 
George  Moore  :  “  I  undertook  a  journey  to  Paris  in  the  depth  of 
winter,  had  two  shocking  passages  across  the  Channel  and  spent  twenty- 
five  pounds.  All  this  worry  is  the  commission  I  received  for  my  trouble 
in  the  matter.” 

Whistler’s  “  Reflection  ”  was :  “  Why,  damme,  sir  !  he  must  have 
had  a  Valentine  himself— the  sea-saddened  expert.”  This  was  followed 
by  the  Butterfly,  “  splendid— actually  rolling  back  with  laughter,  you 
know !  ” 

A  new  feature  was  the  toad  printed  over  the  Dedication  :  “  To 
those  confreres  across  the  Channel  who,  refraining  from  intrusive 
demonstration,  with  a  pluck  and  delicacy  all  their  own  '  sat  tight  ’ 
350  [1897 


The  End  of  the  Eden  Case 

during  the  struggle,  these  decrees  of  the  judges  are  affectionately 
dedicated.” 

Below,  a  Butterfly  bows  and  sends  its  sting  to  England.  The  tiny 
toad  is  the  only  realistic  drawing  in  his  books,  and  to  make  it  realistic 
he  needed  a  model.  He  thought  of  applying  at  the  Zoological  Gardens, 
was  promised  one  by  Mr.  Wimbush,  a  painter  in  the  same  house,  and 
finally  his  step-son,  Mr.  E.  Godwin,  found  one.  He  put  the  toad  in  a 
paper  box,  forgot  all  about  it,  and  was  shocked  when  he  heard  it  was 
dead. 

“  You  know,  they  say  I  starved  it.  Well,  it  must  have  caught  a 
fly  or  two,  and  I  thought  toads  lived  in  stone  or  amber— or  something— 
for  hundreds  of  years— don’t  you  know  the  stories  ?  Perhaps  it  was 
because  I  hadn’t  the  amber  !  ” 

The  Baronet  and  the  Butterfly  was  published  in  Paris  by  Henry  May, 
May  13,  1899.  Whistler  objected  to  the  date,  but  on  the  13th  it 
appeared,  and  the  result  justified  his  superstition.  It  did  not  attract 
much  attention.  When  we  saw  him  in  Paris  that  month  he  seemed  to 
think  the  fault  was  with  the  critics  who  were  keeping  up  the  played-out 
business  of  “  misunderstanding  and  misrepresentation.”  But  the 
interest  in  the  Eden  trial  had  never  been  as  great  as  he  fancied,  and 
the  report  is  dull  reading,  because  there  were  no  witnesses  and  so  no 
cross-examination  which  would  in  England  have  given  him  the 
opportunity  of  “scalping”  his  victim.  The  Ruskin  trial  in  The 
Gentle  Art  is  full  of  Whistler’s  answers  in  court ;  The  Baronet  and  the 
Butterfly  is  made  up  of  the  speeches  of  advocates  and  judges.  In  the 
marginal  notes,  the  Dedication,  the  Argument,  he  is  brilliant  and  witty, 
and  the  Butterfly  as  gay  as  ever.  There  is  no  Whistler  in  it,  that  is  the 
trouble. 

The  book  was  one  of  many  schemes  that  occupied  him  during  these 
years.  The  International  Society  of  Sculptors,  Painters,  and  Gravers 
was  organised,  and  the  Atelier  Carmen  in  Paris  was  planned,  both  so 
important  that,  their  history  is  reserved  for  other  chapters.  A  venture 
from  which  he  hoped  great  things  was  his  endeavour  to  dispense  with 
the  middleman  in  art.  Hitherto  he  had  been  glad  to  trust  his  affairs  to 
dealers.  “  I  will  lay  the  golden  eggs,  you  will  supply  the  incubator,” 
he  told  one,  whose  version  of  the  arrangement  was  that  when  the  incu¬ 
bator  was  ready  Whistler  would  not  give  up  the  golden  eggs.  He  could 
1899] 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

not  reconcile  himself  to  the  large  sums  gained  by  buying  and  selling 
his  work  since  1892.  Over  the  sale  of  old  work  he  had  no  control ;  the 
sale  of  new  he  determined  to  keep  in  his  hands.  He  would  be  his  own 
agent,  set  up  his  own  shop,  form  a  trust  in  Whistlers.  We  think  it 
was  in  1896  he  first  spoke  to  us  about  it,  delighted,  sure  he  was  to 
succeed  financially  at  last.  In  1897  rumours  were  spread  of  a  “  Whistler 
Syndicate.”  In  1898  advertisements  of  the  “  Company  of  the  Butter¬ 
fly  ”  appeared  in  the  Athencsum— the  Company  composed,  as  far  as  we 
knew,  of  James  McNeill  Whistler.  Two  rooms  were  taken  on  the  first 
floor  at  No.  2  Hinde  Street,  Manchester  Square,  close  to  the  Wallace 
Gallery.  They  were  charming.  A  few  prints  were  hung.  A  picture  or 
two  stood  on  easels.  To  go  to  Whistler  in  the  studio  for  his  work  was 
one  thing  ;  it  was  quite  another  to  go  to  a  shop  run  by  no  one  knew 
who,  half  the  time  shut,  and  deserted  when  open.  We  doubt  if 
anything  was  ever  sold  there,  we  never  saw  a  visitor  in  the  place.  Soon 
the  rooms  were  turned  over  to  Mr.  Heinemann  for  a  show  of  Mr. 
Nicholson's  colour-prints,  and  after  that  no  more  was  heard  of  the 
“  Company  of  the  Butterfly.” 

There  was  another  reason  for  starting  it.  So  many  people  came  to 
the  studio  for  so  many  reasons  that  he  had  to  keep  them  out,  and  his 
idea  was  that  those  who  wanted  to  buy  pictures  should  go  to  the  “  Com¬ 
pany  of  the  Butterfly,”  and  buy  them  there  without  interrupting  him. 
But  no  shop  could  dispose  of  the  constant  visits  from  the  curious,  from 
photographers  asking  for  his  portrait,  journalists  begging  for  an  inter¬ 
view,  literary  people  anxious  to  make  articles  or  books  about  him.  They 
would  write  to  arrange  a  certain  hour  and  appear  without  waiting  for 
a  reply.  One,  who  had  written  to  say  he  was  coming  with  a  letter  of 
introduction,  on  his  arrival  found  the  door  fastened  and  heard  Whistler 
whistling  inside,  and  that  was  all  the  indignant  visitor  heard  or  saw  of 
him.  There  is  a  story  of  an  American  collector  who,  calling  one  day 
when  not  wanted,  and  after  wasting  much  time,  asked  : 

“  How  much  for  the  whole  lot,  Mr.  Whistler  1  ” 

“  Five  millions.” 

“  What  ?  ” 

“  My  posthumous  prices  !  ” 

And  there  are  stories  of  Whistler’s  ways  of  meeting  the  hordes  who 
tried  to  force  themselves  into  the  studio.  Mr.  Eddy  tells  one  : 

3 52  [1898-99 


THE  MASTER  SMITH  OF  LYME  REGIS 


OIL 

In  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts 


[See  page  327) 


Between  London  and  Paris 

"  An  acquaintance  had  brought,  without  invitation,  a  friend,  ‘  a  dis¬ 
tinguished  and  clever  woman,5  to  the  studio  in  the  Rue  Notre-Dame- 
des-Champs.  They  reached  the  door,  both  out  of  breath  from  their 
long  climb.  ‘  Ah,  my  dear  Whistler,5  drawled  G — — ,  '  I  have  taken 
the  liberty  of  bringing  Lady  D — —  to  see  you.  I  knew  you  would  be 
delighted.5  ‘  Delighted,  I’m  sure  !  Quite  beyond  expression,  but  5 — 
mysteriously,  and  holding  the  door  so  as  to  bar  their  entrance — *  my 

dear  Lady  D - ,  I  would  never  forgive  our  friend  for  bringing  you  up 

six  flights  of  stairs  on  so  hot  a  day  to  visit  a  studio  at  one  of  these — eh — 
pagan  moments  when  5 — and  he  glanced  furtively  behind  him,  and  still 
further  closed  the  door--'  it  is  absolutely  impossible  for  a  lady  to  be 
received.  Upon  my  soul,  I  should  never  forgive  him.5  And  Whistler 
bowed  them  down  from  the  top  of  the  six  flights  and  returned  to  the 
portrait  of  a  very  sedate  old  gentleman  who  had  taken  advantage  of  the 
interruption  to  break  for  a  moment  the  rigour  of  his  pose.55 

The  “  Company  of  the  Butterfly 55  never  relieved  him  of  the 
visitors  who  were  more  eager  to  see  him  than  his  work.  But  this  he 
did  not  discover  until  he  had  devoted  to  the  venture  far  more  time 
than  he  had  to  spare  during  the  crowded  years  of  its  existence. 


CHAPTER  XLII :  BETWEEN  LONDON  AND  PARIS.  THE 
YEARS  EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SEVEN  TO  NINETEEN 
HUNDRED. 

After  his  marriage  Whistler  was  unfortunate  in  his  choice  of  apartments 
and  studios.  The  Studio  in  the  Rue  Notre-Dame-des-Champs,  on 
the  sixth  floor,  was  the  worst  for  a  man  with  a  weak  heart  to  climb 
to  ;  the  apartment  in  the  Rue  du  Bac,  low  and  damp,  was  as  bad  for 
a  man  who  caught  cold  easily.  He  was  constantly  ill  during  the  winter 
of  1897-98,  which  he  passed  mostly  in  Paris.  Influenza  kept  him  in 
bed  in  November,  from  January  to  March  he  was  dull  and  listless  as 
never  before,  save  in  Venice  after  the  scirocco  ;  he  said,  “  I  am  so  tired— 
I  who  am  never  tired  ! 55 

Whistler’s  heart,  always  weak,  began  to  trouble  him.  He  had  been 
ill  before,  but,  nervous  as  he  was  about  his  health,  he  never  realised  his 
condition.  We  have  known  him,  when  too  ill  to  work,  get  up  out  of 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

bed  in  order  to  accomplish  something  important.  A  few  years  before, 
confined  with  quinsy  to  his  brother’s  house,  forced  to  write  what  he 
wished  to  say  on  a  slate,  when  someone  he  did  not  want  to  see  was 
announced,  he  forgot  that  he  could  not  talk  and  yelled,  “  Send  him 
away  !  ”  We  have  known,  too,  an  invitation  to  dinner  from  a  certain 
rich  American  to  rout  him  out  of  bed  and  to  cure  him  temporarily. 
It  was  this  endeavour  never  to  be  ill,  never  to  give  in,  that  was  one 
of  the  causes  of  his  final  breakdown.  Illness  suggested  death,  and  no 
man  ever  shrank  more  from  the  thought  or  mention  of  death  than 
Whistler.  There  was  in  life  so  much  for  him  to  do,  so  little  time  in 
which  to  do  it.  He  would  tell  his  brother  it  was  useless  for  doctors 
to  know  so  much  if  they  had  not  discovered  the  elixir  of  life.  “  Why 
not  try  to  find  it  ?  ”  he  asked  the  Doctor.  “  Isn’t  it  in  the  heart  of  the 
unknown  ?  It  must  be  there.” 

In  the  studio  he  worked  harder  than  ever.  Illness  made  him  foresee 
that  his  time  was  short,  and  he  was  goaded  by  the  thought  of  the  things 
to  finish.  When  he  was  in  London  we  were  distressed  by  his  fatigue 
at  the  end  of  the  day,  but  he  said  he  was  like  the  old  cart-horse  that 
could  keep  going  as  long  as  it  was  in  traces,  but  must  drop  the  minute 
it  was  free.  While  he  was  in  Paris,  his  letters  were  full  of  the  “  amazing 
things”  going  on  in  the  Rue  Notre-Dame-des-Champs.  He  said; 

* !  Really,  you  know,  I  could  almost  laugh  at  the  extraordinary 
progress  I  am  making,  and  the  lovely  things  I  am  inventing  work  be¬ 
yond  anything  I  have  ever  done  before.” 

He  was  only  beginning  to  know  and  to  understand,  he  told  us. 
All  that  had  gone  before  was  experimental. 

There  were  new  portraits.  In  1897  he  had  begun  one  of  Mr. 
George  Vanderbilt The  Modern  Philip  ”-a  full-length  in  riding 
habit,  whip  in  hand,  standing  against  a  dark  background.  The  canvas 
was  sent  from  Paris  to  London,  just  as  Whistler  and  Vanderbilt  happened 
to  be  in  one  place  or  the  other.  Not  one  of  his  portraits  of  men  interested 
Whistler  so  much  ;  certainly  not  one  was  finer  when  we  first  saw  it  in 
London,  but  it  was  a  wreck  in  the  Paris  Memorial  Exhibition  of  1905. 
Like  others  of  this  period,  it  had  been  worked  over.  He  painted  Mrs. 
Vanderbilt,  Ivory  and  Gold,  shown  in  the  Salon  of  1902,  one  of  the  first 
of  the  several  ovals  he  was  now  doing.  Carmen,  his  model,  sat.  Por¬ 
traits  started  a  year  or  so  later  were  of  his  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Birnie 


Between  London  and  Paris 

Philip,  and  of  IVIr.  Elwell,  an  American  painter  whom  he  had  known 
for  some  time.  In  May  1898,  in  the  Rue  Notre-Dame-des-Champs, 
he  showed  us  the  full-length  of  himself  in  long  overcoat,  called  Gold  and 
Brown  in  the  Paris  Universal  Exhibition  of  1900  and,  as  we  have  said, 
never  seen  afterward.  We  own  a  pen-drawing  he  made  of  it.  It  was 
far  from  successful,  and  before  he  finished  it  Miss  Marian  Draughn,  an 
American,  began  to  pose  for  him— his  “  Coon  Girl  ”  he  called  her.  She 
was  sent  to  him  by  Gibson  and  Phil  May. 

He  painted  many  children.  He  loved  children.  Mr.  Ernest  G. 
Brown  remembers  Whistler’s  thoughtfulness  and  consideration  when  his 
daughter  sat  for  Pretty  Nelly  Brown ,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the 
series.  We  have  the  same  story  from  Mr.  Croal  Thomson,  of  whose 
daughter,  Little  Evelyn ,  Whistler  made  a  lithograph.  When  he  went 
to  her  father’s  house  at  Highgate,  Evelyn  would  run  to  meet  him  with 
outstretched  hands,  her  face  lifted  to  be  kissed,  and  while  he  worked 
the  other  children  would  come  and  look  on.  Mr.  Alan  S.  Cole  has  told 
us  that  once  Whistler  found  his  three  little  daughters  decorating  the 
drawing-room  and  hanging  up  a  big  welcome  in  flowers  for  their  mother, 
who  was  to  return.  He  forgot  what  he  had  come  for  and  helped,  as 
eager  and  excited  as  they,  and  stayed  until  Mrs.  Cole  arrived.  He  was 
walking  from  the  Paris  studio  one  day  with  Mrs.  Clifford  Addams  and 
saw  some  children  playing  ;  he  made  her  stop,  “  I  must  look  at  the 
babbies,”  he  said,  “  you  know,  I  love  the  babbies  !  ”  Later,  during 
his  last  illness,  he  liked  to  have  Mrs.  Addams’  own  little  girl,  Diane,  in 
the  studio.  And  there  are  portraits  of  Mr.  Brandon  Thomas’  baby 
and  Master  Stephen  Manuel  that  show  his  pleasure  in  painting  his  small 
sitters.  The  children  of  the  street  adored  him  ;  the  children  of  Chelsea 
and  Fitzroy  Street,  who  were  used  to  artists,  knew  him  well.  There  was 
one  he  was  for  ever  telling  us  about  of  five  or  six,  who  frightened  while 
she  fascinated  him.  “  I  likes  whusky,”  she  confided  one  day  when  she 
was  posing,  “  and  I  likes  Scoatch  best  !  ”  She  described  her  Christmas 
at  home  :  “  Father  ’e  was  drunk,  mother  was  drunk,  sister  was  drunk, 

I  was  drunk,  and  we  made  the  cat  drunk,  too  !  ”  A  still  younger  child 
gave  him  sittings,  a  baby  of  not  more  than  three,  the  model  for  many 
of  the  pastels.  She  and  her  mother  were  resting  one  afternoon,  Whistler 
watching  her  every  movement.  “  Really,”  he  said,  “  you  are  a  beautiful 
little  thing!”  She  looked  up  at  him,  “Yes,  I  is,  Whistler,”  she 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

lisped.  And  there  is  the  old  story  :  “  Where  did  you  come  from,  Mr. 
Whistler  ?  ”  “I  came  from  on  high,  my  dear.”  “  H’m,  never  should 
have  thought  it,”  said  the  child ;  “  shows  how  we  can  deceive  ourselves.” 
But  his  popularity  with  children  did  not  help  him  one  Sunday  afternoon, 
the  only  time  it  is  possible  to  sketch  with  comfort  in  the  City,  when  he 
went  with  J.  to  make  a  study  of  Clerkenwell  Church  tower,  which  was 
about  to  be  restored.  They  drove  to  the  church,  but  the  light  was  bad 
and  the  colour  not  right,  so  they  wandered  off  to  Cloth  Fair— until  a 
little  while  ago  the  most  perfect,  really  the  only,  bit  of  old  London. 
Though  Whistler  had  worked  there  many  times,  this  afternoon  the 
children  did  not  approve  of  him.  After  a  short  encounter  in  which 
they,  as  always,  got  the  better,  Whistler  and  J.  retired  to  another  cab, 
followed  by  any  refuse  that  came  handy.  But  the  children  he  painted, 
‘The  Little  Rose  of  Lyme  Regis ,  The  Little  Lady  Sophie  oj  Soho,  Lillie 
in  our  Alley,  the  small  Italian  waifs  and  strays,  were  his  friends,  and  no 
painter  ever  gave  the  grace  and  feeling  of  childhood,  or  of  girlhood  as 
in  Miss  W oakes,  more  sympathetically. 

He  was  as  absorbed  in  a  series  of  nudes.  Few  of  his  paintings  towards 
the  end  satisfied  him  so  entirely  as  the  small  Phryne  the  Superb,  Builder 
of  Temples,  which  he  sent  to  the  International  in  1901  and  to  the  Salon 
in  1902.  The  first  time  he  showed  it  to  us  he  asked  : 

“  Would  she  be  more  superb— more  truly  the  Builder  of  Temples-— 
had  I  painted  her  what  is  called  life-size  by  the  foolish  critics  who  bring 
out  their  foot-rule  ?  Is  it  a  question  of  feet  and  inches  when  you  look 
at  her  ?  ” 

He  intended  to  paint  an  Eve,  an  Odalisque,  a  Bathsheba,  and  a 
Danae,  the  designs  to  be  enlarged  on  canvas  by  his  apprentices,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Clifford  Addams,  but  this  was  never  done.  Suggestions  were  in  the 
pastels  of  figures,  for  which  he  found  the  perfect  model  in  London. 
When  not  in  the  studio,  he  kept  sketching  her  from  memory,  and  he  was 
in  despair  when  she  married  and  went  to  some  remote  colony,  but 
before  she  went  he  gave  her  some  beautiful  silver.  These  pastels 
are  many  and  perfect.  They  are  drawings  on  brown  paper— studies 
or  impressions  of  the  model  in  infinite  poses.  In  some  she  stands 
with  her  filmy  draperies  floating  about  her  or  falling  in  long,  straight 
folds  to  her  feet  ;  in  others  she  lies  upon  a  couch,  indolent  and 
lovely  ;  she  dances  across  the  paper,  she  bends  over  a  great  bowl,  she 


‘mm 


..  I 


.  v 


■5:''  & 


m  ■  I 

m^^mi 

mmi 


v 


.- 


(See page  329) 


THE  THAMES 
Ll  THOi'INT.  W.  I23 


Between  London  and  Paris 


sits  with  her  slim  legs  crossed  and  a  cup  of  tea  in  her  hand,  she  holds  a 
fan  or  a  flower  ;  but  whatever  she  may  be  doing  or  however  she  may  rest, 
she  is  but  another  expression  of  the  beauty  that  haunted  Whistler,  the 
beauty  that  was  the  inspiration  of  the  Harmonies  in  White  and  the 
Six  Projects .  Many  poses  are  suggested  in  lithographs,  etchings,  and 
water-colours ;  none  show  greater  tenderness  than  when  she  returned 
with  her  child.  He  put  his  own  tenderness  into  the  encircling  hands 
of  the  mother  holding  the  baby  on  her  knee,  he  found  the  most  rhythmic 
lines  when,  standing,  she  balanced  herself  to  clasp  the  child  the 
more  closely  to  her.  Nothing  could  be  slighter  than  the  means  by 
which  the  effect  is  produced,  the  figures  drawn  in  black  upon  the 
brown  paper,  the  colour — blue,  or  rose,  or  violet — suggested  in 
the  gauzy  draperies  or  the  cap  or  handkerchief  knotted  about  the 
curls.  But  they  have  the  exquisiteness  of  Tanagra  figures  and  are  as 
complete. 

All  this  work  was  done  with  feverish  concern  about  medium's  and 
materials  and  methods.  He  usually  sat  now  as  he  worked,  and  he 
wore  spectacles,  sometimes  two  pairs,  one  over  the  other.  He  was 
never  so  thoughtful  in  the  preparation  of  his  colours  and  his  canvas. 
At  last  the  knowledge  was  coming  to  him,  he  said  again  and  again. 
And  he  was  never  more  successful  in  obtaining  the  unity  and  harmony 
he  had  always  sought,  in  hiding  the  labour  by  which  it  was  obtained, 
and  in  giving  to  his  painting  the  beauty  of  surface  he  prized  so  highly. 
Because  in  painting  he  tried  to  carry  on  the  same  subject,  the  same 
tradition,  superficial  critics  accused  him  of  repeating  himself,  or  mistook 
his  later  for  earlier  works,  like  the  critic  of  the  Times  who,  in  writing  of 
his  pictures  at  the  International  Society’s  Exhibition  of  1898,  referred 
to  “  old  works  .  .  .  among  which  The  Little  Blue  Bonnet  is  the  least 
known,”  a  remark  Whistler  printed  in  the  edition  de  luxe  of  the  catalogue, 
with  the  explanation  that  the  painting  had  come  “  fresh  from  the  easel 
to  its  first  exhibition,”  and  that  therefore  “  the  ‘  plain  man  ’  is,  once 
more,  profoundly  right,  and  we  see  again  the  advantage  of  memory  over 
mere  artistic  instinct  in  the  critic.”  The  small  portraits  and  marines  of 
the  nineties  are  as  fine  as  anything  he  ever  did.  The  fact  that  for  all 
these  pictures  he  used  frames  of  the  same  size  and  the  same  design 
helped — unintentionally  on  his  part — to  confuse  critics  accustomed 
to  the  flamboyant  vulgarity,  utter  inappropriateness,  and  complete 

1898j  357 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

indifference  to  scale  in  the  frames  of  most  painters.  But  then  there 
are  not  half  a  dozen  painters  in  a  generation  who  have  the  faintest 
idea  of  decoration.  Whistler,  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  and  John  La  Farge 
are  almost  the  only  decorators  whose  names  may  be  mentioned  among 
moderns.  Though  some  of  Whistler’s  portraits  are  more  elabo¬ 
rate,  not  one  is  more  powerful  or  more  masterly  as  a  study  of 
character,  and  therefore  more  individual,  than  The  Master  Smith 
of  Lyme  Regis .  When  it  is  contrasted  with  The  Little  Rose ,  the 
embodiment  of  simple,  sweet,  healthy  childhood,  and  The  Little  Lady 
Sophie  of  Soho  and  Lillie  in  our  Alley ,  the  sickly  atmosphere  of  the  slums 
reflected  in  their  strange  beauty,  and  these  again  with  the  exuberant 
colour  and  life  of  Carmen,  there  can  be  no  question  of  the  variety  in 
Whistler’s  later  work,  though  a  certain  manner,  that  might  have  grown 
into  mannerism,  became  more  marked.  There  was  a  similarity  in  the 
general  design.  Most  were  heads  and  half-lengths,  and,  except  in  the 
finest,  nose,  eyes,  and  mouth  were  alike  in  character,  and  hands  were 
badly  drawn  and  clumsily  put  in.  The  colour  was  beautiful  and  he 
exulted  in  it,  but  at  the  very  last  he  must  have  known  as  well  as  anybody 
that  his  power  of  work  was  leaving  him. 

Whistler  spent  the  summer  of  1898  chiefly  in  London,  going  first 
to  Mr.  Heinemann’s  at  Whitehall  Court,  then  to  Garlant’s  Hotel.  The 
delightful  evenings  of  the  year  before  began  again  for  us,  and  there  was 
a  fresh  interest  for  him  in  the  war  between  the  United  States  and  Spain. 

“  It  was  a  wonderful  and  beautiful  war,”  he  thought,  “  the  Spaniards 
were  gentlemen,”  and  his  pockets  were  filled  with  newspaper  clippings 
to  prove  it.  If  we  pointed  out  a  blunder  on  the  part  of  our  soldiers,  if 
we  gave  chance  a  share  in  our  victories,  he  was  furious  : 

“  Why  say  if  any  but  Spaniards  had  been  at  the  top  of  San  Juan, 
we  never  would  have  got  there  ?  Why  question  the  if  ?  The  facts  are 
all  that  count.  No  fight  could  be  more  beautifully  managed.  I  am 
telling  you  !  I,  a  West  Point  man,  know.  What  if  Cervera  did  get 
whipped  ?  What  if  he  was  pulled  up  from  the  sea  looking  like  a  wad 
of  cotton  that  had  been  soaked  in  an  ink-bottle  ?  What  of  it  ?  .  Didn  t 
the  whole  United  States  Navy,  headed  by  the  admirals,  receive  him 
as  the  Commander  of  the  Spanish  Fleet  should  be  received  ? 

He  was  going  out  more  and  seeing  more  people.  But  his  interest 
in  society  was  less,  and  evidently  he  preferred  the  quiet  of  the  evenings 
358  '  [1898 


Between  London  and  Paris 


with  us.  Chance  encounters  in  our  flat  were  often  an  entertainment. 
One  we  recall  most  vividly  was  with  Frederick  Sandys,  whom  he  had  not 
met  for  thirty  years.  Sandys  was  with  us  in  the  late  afternoon  when 
Whistler  knocked  his  exaggerated  postman’s  knock  that  could  not  be 
mistaken,  followed  by  the  resounding  peal  of  the  bell.  They  gave  each 
other  a  chilly  recognition  and  sat  down.  Sandys  was  agitated,  but  there 
was  no  escape.  Whistler  looked  like  Boldini’s  portrait,  but  soon  the^ 
began  to  talk,  and  they  talked  till  the  early  hours  of  the  morning  as  if 
they  wTere  back  at  Rossetti’s,  Sandys  in  the  white  waistcoat  with  gold 
buttons,  but  bent  with  age,  Whistler  straight  and  erect,  but  wrinkled 
and  grey. 

He  returned  to  Paris  late  in  the  autumn,  settling  there  for  the 
winter.  Except  for  his  attacks  of  illness,  there  was  but  one  interruption 
to  his  work.  Mr.  Heinemann  was  married  at  Porto  d’Anzio  in  February 
1899,  and  Whistler  went  to  Italy  as  best  man.  This  was  his  only  visit 
to  Rome.  He  was  disappointed.  To  us  he  described  the  city  as  “  a 
bit  of  an  old  ruin  alongside  of  a  railway  station  where  I  saw  Mrs.  Potter 
Palmer.”  And  he  added  : 

“  Rome  was  awful — a  hard  sky  all  the  time,  a  glaring  sun  and  a  strong 
wind.  After  I  left  the  railway  station,  there  were  big  buildings  more 
like  Whiteley’s  than  anything  I  expected  in  the  Eternal  City.  St. 
Peter’s  was  fine,  with  its  great  yellow  walls,  the  interior  too  big,  perhaps, 
but  you  had  only  to  go  inside  to  know  where  Wren  got  his  ideas — how 
he,  well,  you  know,  robbed  Peter’s  to  build  Paul’s  !  And  I  liked  the 
Vatican,  the  Swiss  Guards,  great  big  fellows,  lolling  about,  as  in  Dumas  ; 
they  made  you  think  of  D’Artagnan,  Aramis,  and  the  others.  And 
Michael  Angelo  ?  A  tremendous  fellow,  yes ;  the  frescoes  in  the 
Sistine  Chapel,  interesting  as  pictures,  but  with  all  the  legs  and  arms 
of  the  figures  sprawling  everywhere,  I  could  not  see  the  decoration. 
There  can  be  no  decoration  without  repose  ;  a  tremendous  fellow,  but 
not  so  much  in  the  David  and  other  things  I  was  shown  in  Rome  and 
Florence  as  in  that  one  unfinished  picture  at  the  National  Gallery. 
There  is  often  elegance  in  the  loggie  of  Raphael,  but  the  big  frescoes 
of  the  stanze  did  not  interest  me.” 

Velasquez’s  portrait  of  Innocent  X.  in  the  Doria  Palace  he, 
apparently,  did  not  see. 

During  the  journey  to  Porto  d’Anzio,  Princess  - 

1898] 


■,  one  of  the 
359 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

wedding  guests,  who  heard  vaguely  that  Whistler  was  an  artist,  inquired 
of  him  : 

“  Monsieur  jait  de  la  peinture,  n'est-ce  pas  ?  ” 

“  Oui,  Princesse.” 

“  On  me  V avail  dit.  Moi  aussi,  j’en  fais,  Monsieur .” 

“  Charmant,  Princesse,  nous  somme s  des  colie  gues.” 

On  the  way  back  from  Rome  Whistler  stopped  at  Florence,  and  of 
his  stay  there  Mr.  j.  Kerr-Lawson  wrote  us  the  account  : 

“  The  McNeill  has  been  here  and  just  gone—we  had  him  lightly 
on  our  hands  all  day  yesterday. 

“  We  didn’t  ‘  do  ’  Florence,  for  there  was  a  fierce  glaring  sun  and  a 
horrible  Tramontana  raging,  so  we  spent  the  best  of  the  morning 
trying  to  write  a  letter  in  the  rococo  manner  to  the  Syndic  of  Murano 
quite  unsuccessfully.  [This  was  after  the  awards  in  the  Venice  Inter¬ 
national  Exhibition.] 

“  After  luncheon  I  took  him  down  to  the  Uffizi.  We  seemed  to  be 
the  only  people  rash  enough  to  brave  the  awful  wind,  for  we  saw  no  one 
in  the  Gallery  but  a  frozen  Guardia.  lie — poor  fellow— was  brushed 
aside  by  a  magnificent  and  truly  awe-inspiring  gesture  as  we  approached 
that  battered  and  begrimed  portrait  in  which  Velasquez  still  looks 
out  upon  the  world  which  he  has  mastered  with  an  expression  of 
superbly  arrogant  scorn  in  the  Portrait  Gallery. 

“  It  was  a  dramatic  moment— the  flat-brimmed  chapeau  de  haut 
forme  came  off  with  a  grand  sweep  and  was  deposited  on  a  stool,  and  then 
the  Master,  standing  back  about  six  feet  from  the  picture  and  drawing 
himself  up  to  much  more  than  his  own  full  natural  height,  with  his  left 
hand  upon  his  breast  and  the  right  thrust  out  magisterially,  exclaimed, 
1  Quelle  allure  !  ’  Then  you  should  have  seen  him.  After  the  solemn 
act  of  homage,  when  he  had  resumed  his  hat,  we  relaxed  considerably 
over  the  lesser  immortals  of  this  crazy  and  incongruous  Valhalla— what 
an  ill-assorted  company  !  How  did  they  all  get  together  ?  Liotard, 
the  Swiss,  jostles  Michael  Angelo,  Giuseppe  MacPherson  rubs  shoulders 
with  Titian,  Herkomer  hangs  beside  Ingres,  and  Poynter  is  a  pendant  to 
Sir  Joshua.  There  are  the  greatest  and  the  least,  the  noblest  and  the 
meanest  brought  together  by  the  capricious  folly  of  succeeding  directors 
and  harmonised  by  that  touch  of  vanity  that  makes  the  whole  world 
kin. 

360 


[1899 


FIRELIGHT.  JOSEPH  PENNELL.  NO.  I 
LITHOGRAPH.  W.  104 
By  permission  of  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  Esq. 


(See page  329) 


Between  London  and  Paris 

“  One  wonders  whom  they  will  ask  next.  Certainly  not  Whistler. 
They  knew  quite  well  he  was  here,  but  not  the  slightest  notice  was  taken 
of  him.  En  revanche,  every  now  and  then  some  vulgar  mediocrity 
passes  this  way,  and  then  the  foolish  Florentines  are  lavish  with  their 
laurels.” 

Whistler  had  not  been  long  dead  when  J.  received  an  inspired  letter 
from  Florence  asking  him  if  he  could  obtain  Whistler’s  portrait  for  the 
Uffizi.  His  answer  was  that  had  they  appreciated  Whistler  they  might 
have  asked  him  while  he  was  alive,  but  as  they  had  not  had  the  sense 
or  the  courage  to  do  so,  they  had  better  apply  to  his  executrix.  As 
yet  there  is  no  portrait  of  Whistler  in  the  Uffizi. 

After  absences  from  his  studio  Whistler  discovered  again  that 
pictures  and  prints  were  disappearing.  It  worried  him,  and  he  tried  to 
trace  and  recover  them.  We  have  little  doubt  that,  at  times,  Whistler 
lost  prints  through  his  carelessness.  We  know  that  once  his  method 
of  drying  his  etchings  between  sheets  of  blotting  paper  thrown  on  the 
floor  was  disastrous.  One  morning  an  artist  came  to  see  us  bringing 
a  number  of  beautiful  proofs  of  the  second  Venice  Set,  in  sheets  of  blot¬ 
ting  paper  as  he  had  bought  them  from  an  old  rag  and  paper  man  in 
Red  Lion  Passage,  who  thought  they  could  be  no  good  because  the 
margins  were  cut  down  and  so  sold  them  for  a  shilling  apiece.  The 
artist  admitted  that  he  did  not  care  for  them,  and  we  offered  him  half-a- 
crown.  “  Oh,”  he  said,  “  as  you  are  willing  to  give  that,  now  I  shall  find 
out  what  they  are  really  worth.”  He  got  sixty  pounds  for  them,  but 
several  of  the  prints  separately  have  since  sold  for  much  more.  Accidents 
like  this  would  account  for  some  of  the  things  Whistler  thought  were 
stolen.  A  few  works  that  had  disappeared  were  recovered  during  his 
lifetime.  But  shortly  after  his  death  there  was  a  sale  at  the  Hotel 
Drouot  in  which  missing  paintings,  drawings,  plates,  prints,  and  even 
letters  were  dispersed.  Only  those  who  were  near  him  can  realise  how 
much  this  troubled  and  annoyed  him  during  his  last  years.  At  the 
same  time  he  began  to  suffer  from  another  of  the  evils  of  success.  Pictures 
somewhat  resembling  his  and  attributed  to  him  appeared  at  auctions, 
and  others  were  sent  to  him  for  identification  or  signature  by  persons 
who  had  purchased  them.  If  he  knew  beforehand  that  one  of  these 
fakes  was  coming  up  in  the  auction-room,  he  would  send  and  try  to  stop 
the  sale,  or,  if  submitted  to  him,  he  would  not  give  it  back.  Neither 
1899]  361 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

expedient  met  with  marked  success.  At  present  there  is  a  factory  of 
Whistlers  in  full  operation,  while  oils  and  water-colours  and  drawings 
ascribed  to  him  without  the  slightest  reason  have  been  openly  sold 
at  auction,  despite  the  protests  made  against  such  swindles. 

Whistler  could  not  stay  long  from  London,  and  the  early  summer  of 
1899  saw  him  back  at  Garlant’s  and  visiting  Mr.  Heinemann  at  Wey- 
bridge.  He  was  in  town  for  the  sequel  to  the  Eden  affair.  He  heard 
that,  on  July  15,  there  was  to  be  a  sale  of  Sir  William  Eden’s  pictures 
at  Christie’s.  He  went  to  it  and  came  to  us  afterwards. 

“  Really,  it  has  been  beautiful.  I  know  you  will  enjoy  it.  It 
occurred  to  me  in  the  morning— the  Baronet  s  sale  to-day  h  m 
the  Butterfly  should  see  how  things  are  going  !  And  I  went  home, 
and  I  changed  my  morning  dress,  my  dandy  straw  hat,  and  then,  very 
correct  and  elegant,  I  sauntered  down  King  Street  into  Christie  s. 
At  the  top  of  the  stairway  someone  spoke  to  me.  ‘  Well,  you  know, 
my  dear  friend,’  I  said,  ‘  I  do  not  know  who  you  are,  but  you  shall  have 
the  honour  of  taking  me  in.’  And  on  his  arm  I  walked  into  the  big  room. 
The  auctioneer  was  crying,  ‘  Going  !  Going !  Thirty  shillings  ! 
Going  1  ’  ‘Ha  ha!’  1  laughed— not  loudly,  not  boisterously ;  it 
was  very  delicately,  very  neatly  done.  But  the  room  was  electrified. 
Some  of  the  henchmen  were  there  ;  they  grew  rigid,  afraid  to  move, 
afraid  to  glance  my  way  out  of  the  corners  of  their  eyes.  ‘  Twenty 
shillings  !  Going  !  ’  the  auctioneer  would  cry.  ‘Ha  ha  !  ’  I  would 
laugh,  and  things  went  for  nothing  and  the  henchmen  trembled.  .  Louis 
Fagan  came  across  the  room  to  speak  to  me— Fagan,  representing  the 
British  Museum,  as  it  were,  was  quite  the  most  distinguished  man 
there.  And  now,  having  seen  how  things  were,  I  took  Fagan’s  arm. 
‘  You,’  I  said,  ‘  may  have  the  honour  of  taking  me  out.’  ” 

He  dined  with  us  the  next  evening  and  found  Mr.  Harry  Wilson, 
whose  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Sydney  Morse,  was  the  friend  upon  whose 
arm  Whistler  had  entered  the  auction-room.  Mr.  Wilson  was  full 
of  the  story,  and  confirmed  the  “electric  shock”  when  Whistler 
appeared. 

He  ran  over  to  Holland  once  during  the  summer.  Part  of  the  time 
he  was  at  Pourville,  near  Dieppe,  where  he  had  taken  a  house  for  Miss 
Birnie  Philip  and  her  mother.  The  sea  was  on  the  right  side  at  Dieppe, 
of  which  he  never  tired ;  at  Madame  Lefevre’s  restaurant  he  could 


Between  London  and  Paris 

get  as  good  a  breakfast  as  in  Paris ;  and  many  small  marines,  oils,  and 
water-colours  were  done  before  bad  weather  drove  him  away. 

Though  it  is  not  always  easy  to  identify  the  place  or  the  time  to 
which  his  small  marines  belong,  for  they  cover  a  number  of  years, 
probably  more  were  made  at  Dieppe  than  anywhere  else.  When  he 
did  not  care  to  work  from  the  shore  there  were  boatmen  who  would  take 
him  out  beyond  the  breakers,  where  he  could  get  the  effect  he  wished 
at  the  height  above  the  water  that  suited  him.  He  used  to  be  seen 
calmly  painting  away  in  a  dancing  row-boat,  the  boatman  holding  it 
as  steadily  as  he  could.  There  is  as  much  of  the  bigness  of  the  ocean 
in  these  little  paintings,  which  show  usually  only  the  grey  or  blue  or 
green,  but  ever  recurring,  swell  of  the  wave,  or  a  quiet  sea  with  two  or 
three  sails  on  the  horizon,  as  in  any  big  marines  that  ever  were  painted. 
He  explained  his  method  to  his  apprentice,  Mrs.  Addams.  When  the 
wave  broke  and  the  surf  made  a  beautiful  line  of  white,  he  painted  this 
at  once,  then  all  that  completed  the  beauty  of  the  breaking  wave,  then 
the  boat  passing,  and  then,  having  got  the  movement  and  the  beauty 
that  goes  almost  as  soon  as  it  comes,  he  put  in  the  shore  or  the  horizon. 

In  Paris,  during  the  winter  of  1899-1900,  he  took  two  small  rooms 
at  the  Hotel  Chatham,  where  the  last  three  years  he  had  often  stayed, 
afraid  to  risk  the  dampness  of  the  Rue  du  Bac.  But  they  were  inner 
rooms  with  no  light  and  scarcely  any  ventilation,  though  most  swell 
and  more  expensive,  unless,  perhaps,  the  lady  who  used  to  come  to 
massage  him  was  included.  He  had  fewer  friends  in  Paris  than  in 
London,  and  he  was  often  lonely.  He  would  go  to  see  Drouet  and  say, 
11  Tu  sais,  je  suis  ennuyi .”  And  Drouet,  to  amuse  him,  would  get  up 
little  dinners,  at  which  all  who  were  left  of  the  old  group  of  students 
met  again.  One  was  given  in  honour  of  Becquet,  whom  Whistler  had 
etched  almost  half  a  century  before.  A  wreath  of  laurels  was  prepared. 
During  dinner  Drouet  said  he  had  met  many  great  men,  but,  four  la 
morale,  none  greater  than  Becquet,  who  was  moved  to  tears,  and  the 
laurel  wreath  was  offered  to  him  by  Whistler,  and  Becquet  fairly  broke 
down  ;  he  “  would  hang  it  on  the  walls  of  his  studio,  always  to  have  it 
before  him,”  he  said. 

Once  Drouet  took  Whistler  to  the  fair  at  Neuilly,  made  him  ride 
in  a  merry-go-round.  Whistler  lost  his  hat,  dropped  his  eye-glass. 
“  What  would  London  journalists  say  if  they  could  see  me  now  ?  ” 

1900]  363 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

he  asked.  They  generally  dined  at  Beauje’s,  in  the  Passage  des  Pano¬ 
ramas,  to  which  Drouet  and  other  artists, literary  men,  and  barristers  went. 
Whistler  renewed  his  intimacy  with  Oulevey,  whom  he  had  barely  seen 
since  the  early  Paris  days.  Madame  Oulevey’s  memories  are,  above  all, 
of  Whistler’s  dining  with  them  in  the  Passage  des  Favorites  at  the 
other  end  of  the  Rue  Vaugirard,  when  he  wore  his  pumps  and,  a  storm 
corning  up  and  not  a  cab  to  be  found  in  their  quarter,  they  had  to  keep 
him  for  hours.  His  pumps  left  an  impression  on  Drouet,  too,  who  was 
sure  it  was  because  Whistler  wore  them  by  day  and  could  not  walk  in 
them  that  he  was  so  often  seen  driving  through  the  streets  in  a  cab. 
And  he  seemed  so  tired  then,  Drouet  said,  half  the  time  lying  back, 
fast  asleep.  Faritin,  the  most  intimate  of  his  early  associates,  he  met  but 
once  and  then  by  chance. 

In  February  news  came  of  the  death  of  his  brother,  Doctor  Whistler. 
Alexander  Harrison  writes  us  : 

“  I  chanced  to  call  upon  him  half  an  hour  after  he  had  received  the 
news  and,  with  quivering  voice  and  tears  in  his  eyes,  he  told  me  that  he 
considered  me  a  friend  and  told  me  his  sad  loss  and  asked  me  to  dine 
with  him.” 

The  two  brothers  had  been  devoted  since  boyhood,  and  Whistler  felt 
the  Doctor’s  death  acutely.  It  made  him  the  more  ready  to  rejoin 
his  friends  in  London,  and  two  months  later  found  him  staying  with 
Mr.  Heinemann,  who  had  moved  from  Whitehall  Court  to  Norfolk 
Street. 

There  E.  dined  to  meet  him  the  evening  after  his  arrival.  Mr. 
Arthur  Symons  gives,  in  his  Studies  in  Seven  Arts,  his  impression  of  the 
dinner,  and  of  Whistler  : 

“  I  never  saw  anyone  so  feverishly  alive  as  this  little  old  man,  with 
his  bright  withered  cheeks,  over  which  the  skin  was  drawn  tightly,  his 
darting  eyes,  under  their  prickly  bushes  of  eyebrow,  his  fantastically 
creased  black  and  white  curls  of  hair,  his  bitter  and  subtle  mouth,  and, 
above  all,  his  exquisite  hands,  never  at  rest.” 

To  us  the  idea  of  his  age  was  never  present.  He  seemed  the 
youngest  wherever  he  was.  But  to  those  who  saw  him  for  the  first 
time  it  was  evident  that  he  was  growing  old.  And  he  had  been  before 
the  public  for  so  long  that  people  got  an  exaggerated  idea  of  his  age. 
Mr.  Symons  continues  : 

364  P900 


SHOP  WINDOW  AT  DIEPPE 
WATER-COLOUR 

[Seepage.  348) 


The  International 


“  Some  person  officially  connected  with  art  was  there,  an  urbane 
sentimentalist  ;  and  after  every  official  platitude  there  was  a  sharp 
crackle  from  Whistler’s  corner,  and  it  was  as  if  a  rattlesnake  had  leapt 
suddenly  out.” 

When  the  “  urbane  sentimentalist  ”  remarked  that  “  there  never 
was  such  a  thing  as  an  art-loving  people,  an  artistic  period,”  Whistler 
said  :  “  Dear  me  !  It’s  very  flattering  to  find  that  I  have  made  you  see 
at  last.  But  really,  you  know,  I  shall  have  to  copyright  my  little 
things  after  this  !  ” 

When  someone  objected  to  the  good  manners  of  the  French,  because 
they  were  all  on  the  surface,  Whistler  suggested,  “  Well,  you  know, 
a  very  good  place  to  have  them.” 


CHAPTER  XLIII:  THE  INTERNATIONAL.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-SEVEN  TO  NINETEEN  HUNDRED 
AND  THREE. 

That  artists  should  hold  Exhibitions  of  International  Art  was  Whistler’s 
idea.  He  had  always  hoped  for  a  gallery  where  he  could  show  his 
work  in  his  own  way  with  the  work  of  men  in  sympathy  with  him. 
Often,  and  years  before,  he  talked  to  us  of  this.  It  mattered  little 
to  him  where  the  gallery  should  be,  in  New  York  or  London,  Paris 
or  Berlin  :  the  exhibition  should  not  be  local  or  national,  but  an 
Art  Congress  for  the  artists  of  the  world.  This  was  his  aim.  The 
men  whom  he  wished  to  have  associated  with  him  lived  mostly  in 
London,  where  now  the  greater  part  of  his  time  was  spent,  and 
London  seemed  the  place  for  the  first  exhibition.  He  and  Mr.  E.  A. 
Walton  tried  to  lease  the  Grosvenor  Gallery,  and  when  they  failed 
they  turned  to  the  Grafton.  But  again  there  were  difficulties,  and 
nothing  definite  was  done  until  1897,  when  a  young  journalist,  who 
was  painting,  Mr.  Francis  Howard,  conceived  the  idea  of  promoting 
a  company  to  hold  an  exhibition  at  Prince’s  Skating  Club,  Knights- 
bridge.  As  the  artists  were  to  incur  no  financial  responsibilities  and 
to  have  complete  artistic  control,  Whistler  consented  to  co-operate. 
The  first  meeting,  the  minutes  record,  was  on  December  23,  1897, 
and  John  Lavery,  E.  A.  Walton,  G.  Sauter,  and  Francis  Howard 
1897]  365 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

were  present.  Whistler,  who  had  been  consulted,  at  first  agreed  that 
members  of  the  Royal  Academy  and  other  artistic  bodies  should  be 
admitted,  and  at  the  second  meeting,  February  7,  1898,  Mr.  Alfred 
Gilbert,  R.A.,  took  the  chair.  A  circular,  unsigned  and  undated,  was 
then  issued  calling  attention  to  a  proposed  exhibition  of  International 
Art,  and  on  it  appeared  the  names  of  James  McNeill  Whistler,  Alfred 
Gilbert,  Frederick  Sandys,  John  Lavery,  James  Guthrie,  Arthur 
Melville,  Charles  W.  Furse,  Charles  Ricketts,  C.  Hazlewood  Shannon, 
E.  A.  Walton,  Joseph  Farquharson,  Maurice  Greiffenhagen,  Will 
Rothenstein,  G.  Sauter,  Francis  Howard.  It  stated,  with  a  clumsiness 
Whistler  could  hardly  have  passed  had  he  seen  the  circular  beforehand, 
that  the  object  of  the  Society  was  the  much-needed  “  organisation  in 
London  of  Exhibitions  of  the  finest  Art  of  the  time  ...  the  non¬ 
recognition  of  nationality  in  Art,  and  the  hanging  and  placing  of 
works  irrespective  of  such  consideration.  .  .  .  The  Exhibitions, 
filling  as  they  will  an  unoccupied  place  in  the  cosmopolitan  ground 
of  International  Art,  will  not  be  in  opposition  to  existing  institutions.” 

An  Executive  Council  appointed  itself,  and  on  February  16,  1898, 
Whistler  was  unanimously  elected  Chairman.  The  most  distinguished 
artists  of  every  nationality  were  invited  to  join  an  Honorary  Council. 
The  Executive,  to  which  J.,  on  Whistler’s  nomination,^  was  elected  in 
March,  was  to  have  entire  charge  of  the  affairs  of  the  exhibition.  1  here 
were  to  be  no  ordinary  members,  but  only  honorary  members  by 

invitation.  . 

Jealousies  and  preferences  immediately  crept  in.  Mr.  Gilbert 
resigned,  which  was  much  to  be  regretted,  and  several  other  English 
members  withdrew  from  the  Council,  which  speedily  became  as  inter¬ 
national  as  the  name  of  the  society,  the  International  Society  of  Sculptors, 
Painters,  and  Gravers,  into  which  it  formed  itself  two  months  later 
(April  23),  when  officers  were  elected,  and  Whistler,  proposed  by 
Mr.  Lavery  and  seconded  by  Mr.  J.  J.  Shannon,  was  chosen  President, 
Mr.  Lavery  Vice-President,  and  Mr.  Francis  Howard  Honorary 

Secretary.  ,  ,  ■  , 

The  International  was  the  second  society  of  artists  over  which 

Whistler  presided.  Only  ten  years  had  passed  since  his  resignation 
from  the  British  Artists,  but  the  change  in  his  position  before  the 
world  was  great.  The  British  Artists,  an  old  and  decrepit  body,  had 


The  International 


chosen  him  as  President  in  the  hope  that  his  “notoriety”  and  his 
following  of  young  men  would  bring  the  advertisement  they  needed  ; 
the  International,  a  young,  vigorous  organisation,  elected  him  because 
they  knew  that  no  other  artist  could  give  them  such  distinction  and 
distinguished  foreign  artists  such  assurance  that  their  work  would 
be  hung  in  a  country  where  previously,  through  fear  of  competition 
and  insular  prejudice,  it  had  been  rejected.  In  the  eighties  Whistler 
was  mistrusted ;  in  the  nineties  he  was  acknowledged  as  one  of  the 
great  artists  of  the  century.  The  change  in  his  position  was  not  greater 
than  his  influence  on  contemporary  art.  This  influence  had  been 
pointed  out  by  the  few  for  some  years  past.  But  the  last  decade  had 
strengthened  it  until  it  could  no  longer  be  denied.  The  younger 
generation  had  accepted  him  in  the  meanwhile,  admitted  their  debt 
to  him,  and  proclaimed  it  openly  in  their  work.  The  New  English 
Art  Club  abjured  subject  and  sentiment  for  the  “  painter’s  poetry  ” 
wherever  it  might  lurk,  whether  in  the  London  bus  transformed  by 
the  London  atmosphere,  or  in  the  Lion-Comique ,  transfigured  on  the 
music-hall  stage  ;  though,  as  Whistler  once  said,  the  New  English 
Art  Club  was  “  only  a  raft,”  while  the  International  was  to  be  a  “  battle¬ 
ship  ”  of  which  he  would  take  command.  The  Glasgow  School  accepted 
his  teaching  and  then  copied  his  technique,  in  some  cases  pushing 
imitation  to  folly.  But  still,  all  that  was  healthiest  and  best  in  the 
art  of  the  country  came  from  these  two  groups,  and  members  of  both 
had  made  an  international  reputation  before  the  International  was 
founded.  Even  in  the  Academy  anecdote  had  lost  for  an  interval 
its  pre-eminence,  and  it  looked  as  if  Academicians  might  begin  to  under¬ 
stand  that  the  painter’s  sole  object  need  not  be  to  tell  a  story.  Besides, 
there  were  two  artists,  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson  and  J.,  writing  upon  art, 
and  they  taught  young  men  to  have  faith  in  Whistler,  and  the  “  new 
criticism  was  born,”  and  D.  S.  M.  MacColl  was  the  name  of  the  first 
and  only  child. 

Nor  was  Whistler’s  influence  confined  to  England.  From  the 
early  eighties,  when  the  jury  was  becoming  more  representative  at 
the  old  Salon ,  the  pictures  he  sent  to  it  had  been  hung.  From  the 
early  nineties  the  new  Salon  gave  them  prominence.  Other  recent 
influences  in  France  had  waxed  and  waned.  The  realism  of  Bastien- 
Lepage,  which  sank  into  photography  with  painters  of  less  accom- 
1898]  367 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

plishment,  and  the  square  brush-mark  were  already  vieux  jeu. 
Impressionism  had  swamped  itself  in  chemical  problems,  and  the  tech¬ 
nique  of  the  Impressionists  had  been  degraded  to  the  exaggerations 
and  absurdities  of  the  Rose-Croix,  to  be  swamped  in  turn  by  the  latest 
fad  of  all.  Whistler  brought  with  him  technical  sanity,  a  feeling 
for  beauty  and  reverence  for  tradition,  and  he,  who  had  been  called 
the  most  eccentric  of  poseurs  in  paint,  led  the  way  back  to  dignity  and 
reticence  in  art,  from  which  he  had  never  swerved.  His  example 
was  revealed  in  the  work  of  artists  of  every  nationality,  either  by  frank 
imitation  or  else  by  their  attitude  towards  Nature  or  the  reserve  of 
their  technique.  Because  of  this  universal  recognition,  he  was  best 
qualified  for  the  Presidency  of  an  International  Society  of  Artists. 

The  honour  was  paid  him  by  no  official  body.  Officially,  to  the 
last,  he  was  destined  to  go  without  due  recognition.  In  France  he 
was  an  ordinary  Societaire  of  the  Societe  Nationals  des  Beaux-Arts. 
The  National  Academy  of  Design  in  America  was  as  indifferent  to 
him  as  the  Royal  Academy  in  England.  His  membership  in  the 
Academies  of  Dresden,  Munich,  Rome,  and  Scotland  was  a  com¬ 
pliment — a  compliment  he  could  and  did  appreciate — but  it  carried 
no  responsibilities  and  required  no  active  work,  and  almost  all  these 
honours  came  after  the  International  was  started.  But  the  new  society, 
if  not  official,  included  on  its  executive  the  strongest  outsiders  in  Great 
Britain,  and  had  the  support  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of  his 
profession  throughout  the  world.  Their  choice  of  him  was  an  acknow¬ 
ledgment  of  his  supremacy  as  artist  and  an  expression  of  confidence 
in  him  as  leader,  and  he  took  no  less  pleasure  in  their  tribute  than 
trouble  not  to  disappoint  their  expectations.  His  experience  with 
the  British  Artists  was  a  help  in  constituting  the  Society.  The  sole 
authority  rested  with  the  Executive  Council,  the  members  of  which 
elected  themselves  and  could  not  be  got  rid  of  except  by  their  voluntary 
resignation  or  expulsion.  Theoretically  the  idea  was  magnificent,  if 
the  narrowest  and  most  autocratic.  “  Napoleon  and  I  do  these  things,” 
Whistler  said,  and  Suffolk  Street  had  taught  him  that  an  intelligent 
autocrat  is  the  best  leader  possible.  His  policy,  if  autocratic,  was 
broad.  In  most  societies  painting  held  a  monopoly,  but,  in  his, 
sculpture  and  “  graving  ”  should  have  equal  importance.  All  his 
rules  were  far-seeing  and  practical,  and  the  decline  of  the  Society 
368  [18^8 


STUDY  IN  BROWN 
on. 

Ia  the  possession  of  the  Baroness  de  Meyer 


(See  page  355) 


The  International 

since  his  death  is  due  to  the  disregard  of  them  :  a  disregard  which 
his  associates  still  on  the  Council  who  are  true  to  his  memory  cannot 
prevent — or  forget. 

The  first  exhibition  was  opened  in  May  1898.  The  Skating  Rink 
at  Knightsbridge  was  divided  into  three  large  and  two  small  galleries. 
Whistler’s  scheme  of  decoration  was  adopted,  and  the  hanging  was 
more  perfect  than  any  up  to  that  time  even  on  the  Continent.  The 
President’s  velarium,  without  question  of  patent,  was  used,  and  he 
designed  the  seal  for  the  Society  and  the  cover  of  the  catalogue.  The 
artistic  success  of  the  show  could  not  be  questioned.  No  such  collection 
of  modern  art  had  been  seen  in  London,  a  proof  that  Whistler  was  as 
broad  as  the  painters  and  the  populace  were  sure  he  was  narrow.  The 
“  Why  drag  in  Velasquez  f  ”  story  is  often  quoted  by  the  ignorant 
and  the  foolish  and  the  stupid.  In  this  Exhibition  he  dragged  in  every¬ 
one  of  eminence,  for,  though  the  ignorant  and  the  foolish  and  the 
stupid  may  never  understand,  the  “  Why  drag  in  Velasquez  ?  ”  was 
uttered  only  for  their  benefit.  Whistler  showed  a  group  of  early 
pictures  :  At  the  Piano ,  La  Princesse  du  Pays  de  la  Porcelaine,  Rosa 
C order,  with  later  works  :  The  Philosopher ,  The  Little  Blue  Bonnet, 
his  own  half-length  portrait  in  a  white  jacket,  Brown  and  Gold.  The 
sculpture  was  as  interesting  as  the  painting.  There  were  drawings  and 
engravings.  Besides,  his  idea  was  to  have  special  exhibitions,  and 
Aubrey  Beardsley,  who  had  just  died,  was  honoured.  Before  the  show 
was  over  delegates  were  sent,  and  communications  received,  from  Paris 
and  Venice  asking  for  an  exchange  of  exhibitions. 

Whistler  came  from  Paris  for  the  opening,  a  quiet  affair  as  the 
endeavour  to  obtain  the  presence  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  failed,  and  he 
lunched  with  the  Council  on  the  opening  day  and  attended  one  or  two 
Sunday  afternoon  receptions.  He  agreed  that  a  fine  illustrated  cata¬ 
logue  should  be  published  by  Mr.  Heinemann,  with  The  Little  Blue 
Bonnet,  in  photogravure,  as  frontispiece.  If  the  first  exhibition  was  a 
complete  artistic  success  it  proved  a  complete  financial  failure.  But 
luckily  the  Society  had  no  pecuniary  responsibility. 

Whistler  knew  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  serve  actively  in  two 
rival  societies;  he  had  said  so  to  the  British  Artists;  and  he  deter¬ 
mined  that  members  of  the  Council  of  the  International  who  were 
members  of  other  societies  must  leave  the  Society,  or,  if  not,  he  would. 
1898]  2  A  ^69 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

His  decision  was  precipitated  by  a  new  election  to  the  Council.  He 
was  in  Paris,  and  the  fact  that  two  members  of  the  Council,  Lavery  and 
J.,  left  London  at  an  hour’s  notice  for  the  Rue  du  Bac  to  arrange  matters 
with  him  shows  how  anxious  he  was  for  the  welfare  of  his  Society. 
They  arrived  early  in  the  morning.  Whistler  was  not  up,  but  sent 
word  that  they  must  breakfast  with  him  in  the  studio.  During  break¬ 
fast  he  talked  of  everything  but  the  Society ;  after  breakfast  he  made 
them  listen  to  a  Fourth  of  July  spread-eagle  oration  squeaked  out 
of  a  primitive  gramophone  that  somebody  had  given  him  and  that  he 
loved  ;  and  it  was  not  until  twenty  minutes  before  they  had  to  start 
back  that  he  referred  to  the  Council.  Then  he  had  all  his  plans  ready, 
and  he  stated  what  he  proposed  to  do,  what  he  wanted  done,  what 
must  be  done — we  might  add,  what  was  done.  And  not  only  at  every 
crisis,  but  in  every  detail,  he  directed  the  management  of  the  Society, 
and  he  demanded  that  every  report,  every  project  should  be  submitted 
to  him.  He  expected  the  deference  due  to  him  as  President,  and  in 
return  he  gave  his  unswerving  support.  Even  during  his  last  illness 
nothing  was  done  without  his  knowledge  and  approval. 

The  second  International  Exhibition,  or  “  Art  Congress,”  was  held 
at  Knightsbridge  from  May  to  July  1899.  The  President  came  over 
when  the  hanging  was  finished.  It  was  arranged  this  year  that  a  special 
show  of  his  etchings  should  be  made,  and  a  small  room  was  decorated 
and  called  the  White  Room.  As  Whistler  was  in  Paris,  he  asked  J. 
and  Mrs.  Whibley  to  go  to  the  studio  and  select  the  prints.  J.  chose 
a  number  that  had  not  been  seen  before,  principally  from  the  Naval 
Review  Series.  Whistler,  for  some  reason,  resented  the  selection  when 
he  saw  the  prints  on  the  walls.  The  Committee  were  in  consternation 
and  sent  for  J.  Whistler  said  to  him  : 

“  Now  look  what  you  have  done  !  ” 

“  But  what  have  I  done  ?  Have  I  done  you  any  harm  ?  ” 

And  that  was  the  end  of  it.  His  objection  may  have  been  because 
he  feared,  as  we  remember  his  saying  of  these  prints  another  time, 
that  they  were  “  beyond  the  understanding  of  the  abomination  outside.” 
But  his  fury  lasted  only  for  the  moment,  and  he  and  Lavery  and  J. 
passed  a  good  part  of  the  night  at  work  in  the  gallery  on  the  catalogue. 

Whistler  received  on  the  opening  day,  and  in  the  evening  the  first 
of  the  Round  Table  Council  dinners  was  held  at  the  Cafe  Royal,  Sir 
370  [1899 


The  International 


James  Guthrie  presiding.  In  an  admirable  speech  he  expressed  not 
only  the  delight  of  the  Council  at  being  able  to  enlist  the  sympathy 
and  aid  of  Whistler,  but  their  love  and  appreciation  for  the  man  and 
his  work.  The  sympathy  then  existing  between  the  President  and 
most  of  the  Council  was  genuine,  and  he  appreciated  it  as  much  as 
they  did.  After  dinner  a  few  of  the  Council  went  with  him  to  Mr. 
Lavery’s,  where  he  was  staying,  and  there  he  read  The  Baronet  and  the 
Butterfly ,  which  had  just  appeared  in  Paris.  This,  because  of  absence  or 
ill-health,  was  the  only  Council  dinner  he  went  to,  though  for  a  time 
there  was  one  every  year,  and  at  several  M.  Rodin  has  presided. 

To  the  second  exhibition  the  President  sent  several  small  canvases 
recently  finished.  Again  the  infallible  critics  discussed  them  as  pro¬ 
mising  works  of  the  past,  and  were  made  to  eat  their  words,  and  again 
in  the  catalogue  Whistler  quoted  the  Times ,  and  to  its  opinion  of  to-day 
of  “  .  .  .  the  vanished  hand  which  drew  the  Symphony  in  White  and 
Miss  Alexander  ”  compared  its  opinion  “  of  the  moment  ”  of  those 
two  pictures,  when  the  Miss  Alexander  suggested  a  sketch  left  “  before 
the  colours  were  dry  in  a  room  where  the  chimney-sweeps  were  at 
work,”  and  was  “uncompromisingly  vulgar.”  “Other  Times,  other 
lines  !  ”  was  Whistler’s  comment.  Three  illustrated  catalogues  were 
published  by  Messrs.  W,  H.  Ward  and  Company.  Whistler’s  Chelsea 
Rags  and  Trouville  were  both  included  in  the  ordinary  editions,  and 
the  Little  Lady  Sophie  oj  Soho  and  Lillie  in  our  Alley  were  added  to 
the  edition  de  luxe.  The  catalogues  until  1910,  when  even  Whistler’s 
format  was  discarded,  are  the  most  interesting  issued  by  any  society. 
The  second  exhibition  was  less  of  a  success  financially  than  the  first, 
and  the  Society  of  Artists  came  near  being  involved  in  the  crash  which 
overtook  the  financing  company.  To  avoid  complications  Whistler 
insisted  that  the  Society  should  have  an  Honorary  Solicitor  and 
Treasurer,  and  Mr.  William  Webb  was  appointed. 

In  the  first  and  second  exhibitions  the  art  of  the  world  was  repre¬ 
sented  as  it  never  had  been  before  in  England,*  as  it  never  has  been 
since.  In  both,  attempts  to  attract  the  public  with  music  and  recep¬ 
tions  and  entertainments  were  made,  but  Whistler  obj’ected  to  music, 
saying  that  the  two  arts  should  be  kept  separate,  that  people  who  came 

*  Sir  Henry  Cole,  in  the  early  sixties,  had  five  international  shows  at  South 
Kensington. 

1899]  371 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

to  hear  the  music  could  not  see  the  pictures,  and  people  who  came  to 
see  the  pictures  would  not  want  to  hear  the  music.  There  were 
misunderstandings  with  the  proprietor  and  the  promoters,  the  former 
wishing  to  see  some  of  his  friends  represented,  and  the  latter  to  see 
some  of  their  money  back,  and  the  outlook  was  gloomy.  Whistler 
wrote  a  memorable  letter  in  which  he  said  that  he,  as  commander, 
proposed  to  repel  pirates  and  sink  their  craft,  and  they  never  openly 
got  aboard,  though  a  few  stowaways  did  creep  in. 

No  show  was  held  in  1900,  the  Paris  Universal  Exhibition  taking 
up  the  members’  energy,  and  not  until  the  autumn  of  1901  was  the  third 
exhibition  opened  at  the  Galleries  of  the  Royal  Institute  in  Piccadilly. 
There  had  been  official  and  other  changes.  Professor  Sauter  had  been 
made  Honorary  Secretary,  pro  tem.,  and  the  Society,  which  up  till 
now  had  consisted  of  the  Council  only,  admitted  Associates,  and  with 
their  election  the  international  character  began  to  wane,  for,  out  of 
thirty-two  Associates  elected,  twenty-eight  were  resident  in  Great 
Britain.  This  exhibition  was  the  first  to  be  financially  successful. 
The  President  sent  seven  small  paintings  and  pastels.  Phryne  the 
Superb  was  reproduced  in  the  catalogue,  as  well  as  Gold  and  Orange — 
The  Neighbours ,  and  Green  and  Silver — The  Great  Sea. 

Professor  Sauter  devoted  himself  to  furthering  the  International 
idea  of  the  President,  and  under  his  Secretaryship  the  Society  held 
exhibitions  of  its  English  members’  work  in  Budapest,  Munich,  and 
afterwards  in  Philadelphia,  Pittsburgh,  Chicago,  and  St.  Louis.  On 
June  11,  1903,  Professor  Sauter  was  relieved  temporarily  of  the  Secre¬ 
taryship  and  J.  took  his  place.  Within  a  few  weeks  it  was  his  sad  duty 
to  call  a  meeting  to  announce  to  the  Society  the  loss  they  had  sustained 
by  the  death  of  their  President. 

The  Council  determined  to  follow  the  traditions  of  Whistler  and 
to  honour  his  memory.  Not  only  were  the  American  exhibitions 
held,  but  the  Society  organised  a  show  of  British  art  in  Dusseldorf, 
and  made  arrangements  for  a  Memorial  Exhibition  of  the  President’s 
works  in  London.  In  the  autumn  of  1903  M.  Rodin  accepted  the 
Presidency,  and  the  fourth  exhibition,  the  first  held  in  the  New 
Gallery,  was  opened  in  January  1904,  in  which  the  late  President 
was  represented  by  the  Symphony  in  White,  No.  III.,  lent  by  Mr. 
Edmund  Davis;  Rose  and  Gold — The  Tulip,  lent  by  Miss  Birnie 
372  [1900-04 


STUDY  OF  THE  NUDE 

PEN  DRAWING 

In  the  possession  of  William  Heinemann,  Esq. 


( See  page  356) 


The  Academie  Carmen 

Philip  ;  V alparaiso ,  lent  by  Mr.  Graham  Robertson  ;  Symphony  in 
Grey— Battersea ,  lent  by  Mrs.  Armitage  ;  and  Study  for  a  Fan ,  lent 
by  Mr.  C.  H.  Shannon. 

In  1905  the  most  important  and  successful  show  in  the  career  of 
the  International  Society  of  Sculptors,  Painters,  and  Gravers  was 
given  :  the  Memorial  Exhibition  of  the  works  of  James  McNeill 
Whistler.  For  complete  success  it  lacked  only  the  co-operation  of 
Whistler’s  executrix,  which  the  Council  originally  understood  was 
promised,  but  which  was  ultimately  withheld.  Still,  it  was  the  most 
complete  exhibition  of  his  works  ever  given,  superior  from  every  point 
of  view  to  the  small  show  at  the  Scottish  Academy  the  previous  year, 
in  many  respects  to  the  Boston  show  of  the  same  year,  and  to  the  Paris 
Memorial  Exhibition,  1905,  which  was  disappointing.  As  can  be  seen 
from  the  elaborate  catalogue,  more  especially  the  beautifully  illus¬ 
trated  edition  de  luxe  published  by  Mr.  Heinemann,  the  exhibition 
at  the  New  Gallery  contained  nearly  all  the  principal  oil-paintings,  the 
largest  collection  of  etchings  ever  shown  together,  all  but  one  or  two 
of  the  lithographs,  and  many  of  the  pastels,  water-colours,  and  drawings. 


CHAPTER  XLIV :  THE  ACADEMIE  CARMEN.  THE  YEARS 
EIGHTEEN  NINETY-EIGPIT  TO  NINETEEN  HUNDRED 
AND  ONE. 

In  the  autumn  of  1898  a  circular  issued  in  Paris  created  a  sensation  in 
the  studios.  Whistler  was  going  to  open  a  school,  the  Acaddmie 
Whistler.  The  announcement  was  made  by  his  model,  Madame 
Carmen  Rossi.  Whistler  at  once  wrote  from  Whitehall  Court,  where 
he  was  staying  (October  1,  1898),  to  the  papers  “  to  correct  an  erroneous 
statement,  or  rather  to  modify  an  exaggeration,  that  an  otherwise 
bona  fi.de  prospectus  is  circulating  in  Paris.  An  atelier  is  to  be  opened 
in  the  Passage  Stanislas,  and,  in  company  with  my  friend,  the  distin¬ 
guished  sculptor,  Mr.  MacMonnies,  I  have  promised  to  attend  its 
classes.  The  patronne  has  issued  a  document  in  which  this  new  Arcadia 
is  described  as  the  Academie  Whistler  and  further  qualified  as  the  Anglo- 
American  School.  I  would  like  it  to  be  understood  that,  having 
hitherto  abstained  from  all  plot  of  instruction,  this  is  no  sudden  assertion 
1898] 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

in  the  Ville  Lumiere  of  my  own.  Nor  could  I  be  in  any  way  responsible 
for  the  proposed  mysterious  irruption  in  Paris  of  whatever  Anglo- 
American  portends.  ‘  American,’  I  take  it,  is  synonymous  with  modesty, 
and  ‘  Anglo,’  in  art,  I  am  unable  to  grasp  at  all,  otherwise  than  as 
suggestive  of  complete  innocence  and  the  blank  of  Burlington  House. 
I  purpose  only,  then,  to  visit,  as  harmlessly  as  may  be,  in  turn  with 
Mr.  MacMonnies,  the  new  academy  which  has  my  best  wishes,  and,  if 
no  other  good  come  of  it,  at  least  to  rigorously  carry  out  my  promise  of 
never  appearing  anywhere  else.” 

Whistler  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  financial  management,  every¬ 
thing  with  the  system  of  teaching,  and  he  said  that  he  proposed  to  offer 
the  students  his  knowledge  of  a  lifetime.  It  may  be,  as  we  have  heard, 
that  he  had  been  asked,  with  MacMonnies,  to  criticise  the  work  of  Ary 
Renan’s  or  Luc-Olivier  Merson’s  students,  and  that  this  gave  him  the 
idea  of  visiting  a  school  under  his  own  direction. 

The  Passage  Stanislas  is  a  small  street  running  off  the  Rue  Notre- 
Dame-des-Champs ;  No.  6,  a  house  of  two  storeys  and  a  courtyard 
or  garden  at  the  back  which  was  afterwards  covered  with  glass. 
Over  the  front  door  the  sign  Academie  Whistler  did  appear,  but  only 
for  a  short  time.  The  glazed  courtyard  became  a  studio,  and  there 
was  another  above  to  which  a  fine  old  staircase  led.  The  house  had 
been  built,  or  adapted,  as  a  studio,  and,  except  that  the  walls  were 
distempered,  no  change  was  made.  The  rooms  were  fitted  up  with 
school  furniture  ;  for  this,  we  believe,  Whistler  advanced  the  money. 
Within  a  few  days  a  vast  number  of  pupils  had  put  their  names  down, 
deserting  the  other  ateliers  of  Paris.  Some  left  the  English  schools,  and 
still  others  came  from  Germany  and  America.  ^Vhistler  was  delighted, 
telling  us  that  students  were  coming  in  squads,  that  the  Passage  was 
crowded,  and  that  owners  of  carriages  struggled  with  ra.'pins  and  prize¬ 
winners  to  get  in. 

Miss  Inez  Bate  (Mrs.  Clifford  Addams),  who  was  among  the  earliest 
to  put  down  her  name,  who  remained  m  the  school  till  the  end  and  who 
became  Whistler’s  apprentice,  has  not  only  told  us  the  story  of  the 
Academie  Carmen ,  but  has  given  us  her  record  of  it  and  of  Whistler  s 
methods  of  teaching,  written  at  his  request  and  partially  corrected  by 
him.  It  is  the  record  of  his  ,l  knowledge  of  a  lifetime,  for  he  taught 
in  the  school  the  truths  he  had  been  years  formulating,  and  is  of  the 


The  Academie  Carmen 

greatest  importance,  as  valuable  a  document  as  the  treatise  of  Cennino 
Cennini.  In  the  future  Mrs.  Addams’  statement,  revised  by  Whistler, 
will  live. 

He  insisted  on  seriousness.  The  Academie  Carmen  was  not  to  be  like 
other  schools ;  instead  of  singing,  there  was  to  be  no  talking  ;  smoking 
was  not  allowed  ;  the  walls  were  not  to  be  decorated  with  charcoal  ; 
studio  cackle  was  forbidden  ;  if  people  wanted  these  things,  they  could 
go  back  from  whence  they  came.  He  was  to  be  received  as  a  master 
visiting  his  pupils,  not  as  a  good  fellow  in  his  shirt-sleeves.  For  the  first 
weeks  things  did  not  go  very  well.  Carmen  was  not  used  to  her  post, 
the  students  were  not  used  to  such  a  master,  and  Whistler  was  not  used 
to  them.  A  massier  was  appointed,  and  the  men  and  women  who  had 
been  working  together  were  separated  and  two  classes  formed.  Within 
a  short  time  Mrs.  Addams  was  chosen  massiere ,  a  position  she  held  until 
the  school  closed.  She  writes  : 

“  The  Academie  began  its  somewhat  disturbed  career  in  the  fall 
of  1898.  A  letter  was  received  from  Mr.  Whistler  announcing  that 
he  would  shortly  appear,  and,  on  the  day  appointed,  the  Academie 
Carmen  had  the  honour  of  receiving  him  for  the  first  time.  He  pro¬ 
ceeded  to  look  at  the  various  studies,  most  carefully  noting  under  whose 
teaching  and  in  what  school  each  student’s  former  studies  had  been 
pursued. 

“  Most  kindly  something  was  said  to  each,  and  to  one  student  who 
offered  apology  for  his  drawing,  Mr.  Whistler  said  simply,  ‘  It  is 
unnecessary — I  really  come  to  learn— feeling  you  are  all  much  cleverer 
than  I.’ 

“  Mr.  Whistler,  before  he  left,  expressed  to  the  Patronne  his  wish 
that  there  should  be  separate  ateliers  for  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  and 
that  the  present  habit  of  both  working  together  should  be  immediately 
discontinued. 

“  His  second  visit  was  spent  in  consideration  of  the  more  advanced 
students.  One,  whose  study  suffered  from  the  introduction  of  an 
unbeautiful  object  in  the  background,  because  it  happened  to  be  there, 
was  told  that,  ‘  One’s  study,  even  the  most  unpretentious,  is  always 
one’s  picture,  and  must  be,  in  form  and  arrangement,  a  perfect  harmony 
from  the  beginning.’  With  this  unheard-of  advice,  Mr.  Whistler 
turned  to  the  students,  whose  work  he  had  been  inspecting,  and 
1898]  3 75 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

in  the  V ille  Lumiere  of  my  own.  Nor  could  I  be  in  any  way  responsible 
for  the  proposed  mysterious  irruption  in  Paris  of  whatever  Anglo- 
American  portends.  ‘  American,’  I  take  it,  is  synonymous  with  modesty, 
and  ‘  Anglo,’  in  art,  I  am  unable  to  grasp  at  all,  otherwise  than  as 
suggestive  of  complete  innocence  and  the  blank  of  Burlington  House. 
I  purpose  only,  then,  to  visit,  as  harmlessly  as  may  be,  in  turn  with 
Mr.  MacMonnies,  the  new  academy  which  has  my  best  wishes,  and,  if 
no  other  good  come  of  it,  at  least  to  rigorously  carry  out  my  promise  of 
never  appearing  anywhere  else.” 

Whistler  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  financial  management,  every¬ 
thing  with  the  system  of  teaching,  and  he  said  that  he  proposed  to  offer 
the  students  his  knowledge  of  a  lifetime.  It  may  be,  as  we  have  heard, 
that  he  had  been  asked,  with  MacMonnies,  to  criticise  the  work  of  Ary 
Renan’s  or  Luc-Olivier  Merson’s  students,  and  that  this  gave  him  the 
idea  of  visiting  a  school  under  his  own  direction. 

The  Passage  Stanislas  is  a  small  street  running  off  the  Rue  Notre- 
Dame-des-Champs ;  No.  6,  a  house  of  two  storeys  and  a  courtyard 
or  garden  at  the  back  which  was  afterwards  covered  with  glass. 
Over  the  front  door  the  sign  A cademie  Whistler  did  appear,  but  only 
for  a  short  time.  The  glazed  courtyard  became  a  studio,  and  there 
was  another  above  to  which  a  fine  old  staircase  led.  The  house  had 
been  built,  or  adapted,  as  a  studio,  and,  except  that  the  walls  were 
distempered,  no  change  was  made.  The  rooms  were  fitted  up  with 
school  furniture  ;  for  this,  we  believe,  Whistler  advanced  the  money. 
Within  a  few  days  a  vast  number  of  pupils  had  put  their  names  down, 
deserting  the  other  ateliers  of  Paris.  Some  left  the  English  schools,  and 
still  others  came  from  Germany  and  America.  Whistler  was  delighted, 
telling  us  that  students  were  coming  in  squads,  that  the  Passage  was 
crowded,  and  that  owners  of  carriages  struggled  with  rapins  and  prize¬ 
winners  to  get  in. 

Miss  Inez  Bate  (Mrs.  Clifford  Addams),  who  was  among  the  earliest 
to  put  down  her  name,  who  remained  in  the  school  till  the  end  and  who 
became  Whistler’s  apprentice,  has  not  only  told  us  the  story  of  the 
Academie  Carmen ,  but  has  given  us  her  record  of  it  and  of  Whistler  s 
methods  of  teaching,  written  at  his  request  and  partially  corrected  by 
him.  It  is  the  record  of  his  “  knowledge  of  a  lifetime,  for  he  taught 
in  the  school  the  truths  he  had  been  years  formulating,  and  is  of  the 


The  Academie  Carmen 

greatest  importance,  as  valuable  a  document  as  the  treatise  of  Cennino 
Cennini.  In  the  future  Mrs.  Addams’  statement,  revised  by  Whistler, 
will  live. 

He  insisted  on  seriousness.  The  Academie  Carmen  was  not  to  be  like 
other  schools  ;  instead  of  singing,  there  was  to  be  no  talking  ;  smoking 
was  not  allowed  ;  the  walls  were  not  to  be  decorated  with  charcoal  ; 
studio  cackle  was  forbidden  ;  if  people  wanted  these  things,  they  could 
go  back  from  whence  they  came.  He  was  to  be  received  as  a  master 
visiting  his  pupils,  not  as  a  good  fellow  in  his  shirt-sleeves.  For  the  first 
weeks  things  did  not  go  very  well.  Carmen  was  not  used  to  her  post, 
the  students  were  not  used  to  such  a  master,  and  Whistler  was  not  used 
to  them.  A  massier  was  appointed,  and  the  men  and  women  who  had 
been  working  together  were  separated  and  two  classes  formed.  Within 
a  short  time  Mrs.  Addams  was  chosen  massiere ,  a  position  she  held  until 
the  school  closed.  She  writes  : 

“  The  Academie  began  its  somewhat  disturbed  career  in  the  fall 
of  1898.  A  letter  was  received  from  Mr.  Whistler  announcing  that 
he  would  shortly  appear,  and,  on  the  day  appointed,  the  Academie 
Carmen  had  the  honour  of  receiving  him  for  the  first  time.  He  pro¬ 
ceeded  to  look  at  the  various  studies,  most  carefully  noting  under  whose 
teaching  and  in  what  school  each  student’s  former  studies  had  been 
pursued. 

“  Most  kindly  something  was  said  to  each,  and  to  one  student  who 
offered  apology  for  his  drawing,  Mr.  Whistler  said  simply,  ‘  It  is 
unnecessary— I  really  come  to  learn— feeling  you  are  all  much  cleverer 
than  I.’ 

“  Mr.  Whistler,  before  he  left,  expressed  to  the  Patronne  his  wish 
that  there  should  be  separate  ateliers  for  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  and 
that  the  present  habit  of  both  working  together  should  be  immediately 
discontinued. 

“  His  second  visit  was  spent  in  consideration  of  the  more  advanced 
students.  One,  whose  study  suffered  from  the  introduction  of  an 
unbeautiful  object  in  the  background,  because  it  happened  to  be  there, 
was  told  that,  ‘  One’s  study,  even  the  most  unpretentious,  is  always 
one’s  picture,  and  must  be,  in  form  and  arrangement,  a  perfect  harmony 
from  the  beginning.’  With  this  unheard-of  advice,  Mr.  Whistler 
turned  to  the  students,  whose  work  he  had  been  inspecting,  and 
1898]  3 75 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

intimated  that  they  might  begin  to  paint,  and  so  really  learn  to  draw, 
telling  them  that  the  true  understanding  of  drawing  the  figure  comes  by 
having  learned  to  appreciate  the  subtle  modellings  by  the  use  of  the 
infinite  gradation  that  paint  makes  possible. 

“  On  his  third  visit  he  turned  to  one  student  and  picked  up  her 
palette,  pointing  out  that  being  the  instrument  on  which  the  painter 
plays  his  harmony,  it  must  be  beautiful  always,  as  the  tenderly-cared-for 
violin  of  the  great  musician. 

“He  suggested  that  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  show  them  his  way 
of  painting,  and  if  this  student  could,  without  too  much  difficulty, 
clean  her  palette,  he  would  endeavour  to  show  them  ‘  the  easiest  way 
of  getting  into  difficulties.’ 

“  And  it  was  then  that  Mr.  Whistler’s  palette  was  given.  His 
whole  system  lies  in  the  complete  mastery  of  the  palette —  on  the  palette 
the  work  must  be  done  before  transferring  one  note  on  to  the  canvas. 

“  He  recommended  the  small  oval  palettes  as  being  easy  to  hold. 
White  was  placed  at  the  top  edge  in  the  centre,  in  generous  quantity, 
and  to  the  left  came  in  succession  yellow  ochre,  raw  sienna,  burnt 
sienna,  raw  umber,  cobalt,  and  mineral  blue  ;  while  to  right,  vermilion, 
Venetian  red,  Indian  red,  and  black  Sometimes  the  burnt  sienna  would 
be  placed  between  the  Venetian  and  Indian  red,  but  generally  the 
former  placing  of  colours  was  insisted  upon. 

“  A  mass  of  colour,  giving  the  fairest  tone  of  the  flesh,  would  then 
be  mixed  and  laid  in  the  centre  of  the  palette  near  the  top,  and  a 
broad  band  of  black  curving  downward  from  this  mass  of  light  flesh- 
note  to  the  bottom,  gave  the  greatest  depth  possible  in  any  shadow, 
and  so,  between  the  prepared  light  and  the  black,  the  colour  was  spread, 
and  mingled  with  any  of  the  various  pure  colours  necessary  to  obtain 
the  desired  changes  of  note,  until  there  appeared  on  the  palette  a  tone- 
picture  of  the  figure  that  was  to  be  painted,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
preparation  for  the  background  was  made  on  the  left  in  equally  careful 
manner. 

“  Many  brushes  were  used,  each  one  containing  a  full  quantity  of 
every  dominant  note,  so  that  when  the  palette  presented  as  near  a 
reproduction  of  the  model  and  background  as  the  worker  could  obtain, 
the  colour  could  be  put  down  with  a  generous  flowing  brush. 

“  Mr.  Whistler  said,  ‘  I  do  not  interfere  with  your  individuality.  I 
376  [1898 


ROSE  AND  GOLD 
LITTLE  LADY  SOPHIE  OF  SOHO 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  Charles  L.  Freer,  Esq. 


(See  fage  356) 


The  Academie  Carmen 


place  in  your  hands  a  sure  means  of  expressing  it,  if  you  can  learn 
to  understand,  and  if  you  have  your  own  sight  still.’  Each  student 
prepared  his  or  her  palette,  in  some  the  mass  of  light  would  exceed  the 
dark,  in  others  the  reverse  would  be  the  case.  Mr.  Whistler  made  no 
comments  on  these  conditions  of  the  students’  palettes  :  ‘  I  do  not  teach 
art  ;  I  teach  the  scientific  application  of  paint  and  brushes.’  His  one 
insistence  was  that  no  painting  on  the  canvas  should  be  begun  until 
the  student  felt  he  could  go  no  further  on  the  palette  ;  the  various 
and  harmonious  notes  were  to  represent,  as  nearly  as  he  could  see,  the 
model  and  background  that  he  was  to  paint. 

“  Mr.  Whistler  would  often  refrain  from  looking  at  the  students’ 
canvas,  but  would  carefully  examine  the  palette,  saying  that  there 
he  could  see  the  progress  being  made,  and  that  it  was  really  much  more 
important  for  it  to  present  a  beautiful  appearance,  than  for  the  canvas 
to  be  fine  and  the  palette  inharmonious.  He  said,  ‘  If  you  cannot 
manage  your  palette,  how  are  you  going  to  manage  your  canvas  ?  ’ 

“  These  statements  sounded  like  heresy  to  the  majority  of  the 
students,  and  they  refused  to  believe  the  reason  and  purpose  of  such 
teaching,  and  as  they  had  never  before  received  even  a  hint  to  consider 
the  palette  of  primary  importance,  they  insisted  in  believing  that  this 
was  but  a  peculiarity  of  Mr.  Whistler’s  manner  of  working,  and  that, 
to  adopt  it,  would  be  with  fatal  results  ! 

“  The  careful  attempts  to  follow  the  subtle  modellings  of  flesh 
placed  in  a  quiet,  simple  light,  and  therefore  extremely  grey  and  intri¬ 
cate  in  its  change  of  form,  brought  about  necessarily,  in  the  commence¬ 
ment  of  each  student’s  endeavour,  a  rather  low-toned  result.  One 
student  said  to  Mr.  Whistler  that  she  did  not  wish  to  paint  in  such  low 
tones,  but  wanted  to  keep  her  colour  pure  and  brilliant ;  he  answered, 
‘  then  keep  it  in  the  tubes,  it  is  your  only  chance  at  first.’ 

“  They  were  taught  to  look  upon  the  model  as  a  sculptor  would, 
using  the  paint  as  a  modeller  does  his  clay  ;  to  create  on  the  canvas  a 
statue,  using  the  brush  as  a  sculptor  his  chisel,  following  carefully  each 
change  of  note,  which  means  ‘  form  ’ ;  it  being  preferable  that  the 
figure  should  be  presented  in  a  simple  manner,  without  an  attempt  to 
obtain  a  thousand  changes  of  colour  that  are  there  in  reality,  and  make 
it,  first  of  all,  really  and  truly  exist  in  its  proper  atmosphere,  than  that 
it  should  present  a  brightly  coloured  image,  pleasing  to  the  eye,  but 

1898]  377 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

without  solidity  and  non-existent  on  any  real  plane.  This,  it  will  be 
seen,  was  the  reason  of  Mr.  Whistler’s  repeated  and  insistent  commands 
to  give  the  background  the  most  complete  attention,  believing  that  by 
it  alone  the  figure  had  a  reason  to  exist. 

“  Mr.  Whistler  would  often  paint  for  the  students. 

“  Once  he  modelled  a  figure,  standing  in  the  full,  clear  light  of  the 
atelier,  against  a  dull,  rose-coloured  wall.  After  spending  almost  an 
hour  upon  the  palette,  he  put  down  with  swift,  sure  touches,  the  notes 
of  which  his  brushes  were  already  generously  filled,  so  subtle  that  those 
standing  close  to  the  canvas  saw  apparently  no  difference  in  each 
successive  note  as  it  was  put  down,  but  those  standing  at  the  proper 
distance  away  noticed  the  general  turn  of  the  body  appear,  and  the 
faint  subtle  modellings  take  their  place,  and  finally,  when  the  last  delicate 
touch  of  light  was  laid  on,  the  figure  was  seen  to  exist  in  its  proper 
atmosphere  and  at  its  proper  distance  within  the  canvas,  modelled, 
as  Mr.  Whistler  said,  ‘  in  painter’s  clay,’  and  ready  to  be  taken  up  the 
next  day  and  carried  yet  further  in  delicacy,  and  the  next  day  further 
still,  and  so  on  until  the  end. 

“  And  he  insisted  that  it  was  as  important  to  train  the  eye  as  the 
hand,  that  long  accustoming  oneself  to  seeing  crude  notes  in  Nature, 
spots  of  red,  blue,  and  yellow  in  flesh  where  they  are  not,  had  harmed 
the  eye,  and  the  training  to  readjust  the  real,  quiet,  subtle  note  of 
Nature  required  long  and  patient  study.  ‘  To  find  the  true  note  is 
the  difficulty  ;  it  is  comparatively  easy  to  employ  it  when  found.’ 

“  He  once  said  that  had  he  been  given  at  the  commencement  of 
his  artistic  career  what  he  was  then  offering,  his  work  would  have  been 
different.  But  he  found  in  his  youth  no  absolute  definite  facts,  and  he 
‘  fell  in  a  pit  and  floundered,’  and  from  this  he  desired  to  save  whom  he 
could.  ‘  All  is  so  simple,’  he  would  say,  ‘  it  is  based  on  proved  scientific 
facts  ;  follow  this  teaching  and  you  must  learn  to  paint  ;  not  necessarily 
learn  art,  but,  at  least,  absolutely  learn  to  paint  what  you  see.’ 

“  He  also  demanded  the  student  to  abandon  all  former  methods 
of  teaching,  unless  in  harmony  with  his  own,  and  to  approach  the 
science  as  taught  by  himself  in  a  simple  and  trustful  manner. 

“  The  students,  used  to  having  any  little  sketch  praised,  and  finding 
such  efforts  remained  unnoticed  by  Mr.  Whistler,  while  an  intelligent 
and  careful,  though  to  their  eyes  stupid, ^attempt  to  model  in  simple 
378  [1898 


The  Academie  Carmen 

form  and  colour  would  receive  approbation,  grew  irritated,  and  the 

majority  left  for  a  more  congenial  atmosphere.  _ 

“  It  was  pointed  out  that  a  child,  in  the  simple  innocence  of  infancy, 
painting  the  red  coat  of  the  toy  soldier  red  indeed,  is  in  reality  nearer 
the  great  truth  than  the  most  accomplished  trickster  with  his  clever 
brushwork  and  brilliant  manipulation  of  many  colours. 

“  ‘  Distrust  everything  you  have  done  without  understanding  it. 
It  is  not  sufficient  to  achieve  a  fine  piece  of  painting.  You  must  know 
how  you  did  it,  that  the  next  time  you  can  do  it  again,  and  never  have 
to  suffer  from  that  disastrous  state  of  the  clever  artist,  whose  friends 
say  to  him,  what  a  charming  piece  of  painting,  do  not  touch  it  again,  and, 
although  he  knows  it  is  incomplete,  yet  he  dare  not  but  comply,  because 
he  knows  he  might  never  get  the  same  clever  effect  again. 

“  ‘  Remember  which  of  the  colours  you  most  employed,  how  you 
managed  the  turning  of  the  shadow  into  the  light,  and  if  you  do  not 
remember  scrape  out  your  work  and  do  it  all  over  again,  for  out  fact  is 
worth  a  thousand  misty  imaginings.  You  must  be  able  to  do  every 
part  equally  well,  for  the  greatness  of  a  work  of  art  lies  in  the  perfect 
harmony  of  the  whole,  not  in  the  fine  painting  of  one  or  more  details.’ 

“  It  was  many  months  before  a  student  produced  a  canvas  which 
showed  a  grasp  of  the  science  he  had  so  patiently  been  explaining.  Mr. 
Whistler  delighted  in  this,  and  had  the  canvas  placed  on  an  easel  and 
in  a  frame  that  he  might  more  clearly  point  out  to  the  other  students 
the  reason  of  its  merit  ;  it  showed  primarily  an  understanding  of  the 
two  great  principles ;  first,  it  represented  a  figure  inside  the  frame 
and  surrounded  by  the  atmosphere  of  the  studio,  and  secondly,  it  was 
created  of  one  piece  of  flesh,  simply  but  firmly  painted  and  free  from 
mark  of  brush.  As  the  weeks  went  on,  and  the  progress  in  this  student’s 
work  continued,  Mr.  Whistler  finally  handed  over  to  her  [Mrs.  Addams] 
the  surveillance  of  the  new-comers  and  the  task  of  explaining  to  them 
the  first  principles  of  his  manner. 

“  The  Academie  had  the  distinction  of  causing  the  rumour  that 
something  was  being  taught  there,  something  definite  and  absolute. 

“  A  large  number  of  students  who  had  been  in  the  Academie  for  a 
short  time  and  left,  returned,  dissatisfied  with  other  schools,  that  they 
might  once  more  satisfy  themselves  that  nothing  was  to  be  learned 
there  after  all. 

1898] 


379 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

"  Mr.  Whistler  allowed  this  to  continue  for  some  time,  but  finally, 
the  fatigue  of  such  constant  changes  caused  him  to  issue  an  order  that 
the  Acadimie  Carmen  should  be  tried  but  once. 

“  The  students  in  the  men’s  life-class  were  constantly  changing. 
On  Christmas  Day,  Mr.  Whistler  invited  them  to  visit  him  in  his 
atelier  and  showed  them  many  of  his  own  canvases  in  various  stages  of 
completeness ;  explaining  how  certain  results  had  been  obtained,  and 
how  certain  notes  had  been  blended,  and  assuring  them  that  he  used 
the  science  he  was  teaching  them,  only  that  each  student  would  arrange 
it  according  to  his  own  needs  as  time  went  on,  begging  them  not  to 
hesitate  to  ask  him  any  question  that  they  wished,  or  to  point  out 
anything  they  failed  to  understand.  There  was  an  increased  enthu¬ 
siasm  for  a  few  weeks,  but  gradually  the  old  spirit  of  misunderstanding 
and  mistrust  returned,  and  the  men’s  class  again  contained  but  few 
students. 

“  Another  disappointment  to  them  was  that  Mr.  Whistler  explained 
when  they  showed  him  pictures  they  had  painted  with  a  hope  to  exploit 
as  pupils  of  the  Master  in  the  yearly  Salon,  that  this  was  impossible, 
that  their  complete  understanding  of  the  Great  Principles  and  the 
fitting  execution  of  their  application  could  not  be  a  matter  of  a  few 
months’  study,  and  he  told  them  he  was  like  a  chemist  who  put  drugs 
into  bottles,  and  he  certainly  should  not  send  those  bottles  out  in  his 
name  unless  he  was  quite  satisfied  with,  and  sure  of,  the  contents. 

“  The  last  week  of  the  first  year  arrived,  and  Mr.  Whistler  spent 
the  whole  of  each  morning  at  the  Academie.  The  supervision  of  one 
student’s  work  was  so  satisfactory  that  he  communicated  with  her, 
after  the  closing  of  the  Academie ,  to  announce  that  he  desired  to  enter 
into  an  apprenticeship  with  her,  for  a  term  of  five  years,  as  he  con¬ 
sidered  it  would  take  fully  that  time  to  teach  her  the  whole  of  his 
Science  and  make  of  her  a  finished  craftsman ;  with  her  artistic  develop¬ 
ment  he  never  for  a  moment  pretended  to  interfere— -‘that,’  he  said, 

‘  is  or  is  not  superb-— it  was  determined  at  birth,  but  I  can  teach  you 
how  to  paint.' 

“  So,  on  the  20th  of  July  (1899),  the  Deed  of  Apprenticeship  [with 
Mrs.  Addams]  was  signed  and  legally  witnessed,  and  she  ‘  bound  herself 
to  her  Master  to  learn  the  Art  and  Craft  of  a  painter,  faithfully  to  serve 
after  the  manner  of  an  Apprentice  for  the  full  term  of  five  years,  his 

380  [1899 


BLUE  AND  CORAL 
THE  LITTLE  BLUE  BONNET 

OIL 

Formerly  in  the  possession  of  Wm.  Heinemann,  Esq. 


(See page  357) 


The  Academie  Carmen 

secrets  keep  and  his  lawful  commands  obey,  she  shall  do  no  damage  to 
his  goods  nor  suffer  it  to  be  done  by  others,  nor  waste  his  goods,  nor 
lend  them  unlawfully,  nor  do  any  act  whereby  he  might  sustain  loss, 
nor  sell  to  other  painters  nor  exhibit  during  her  apprenticeship  nor 
absent  herself  from  her  said  Master’s  service  unlawfully,  but  in  all 
things  as  a  faithful  Apprentice  shall  behave  herself  towards  her  said 
Master  and  others  during  the  said  term.  .  .  .  And  the  said  Master, 
on  his  side,  undertakes  to  teach  and  instruct  her,  or  cause  her  to  be 
taught  and  instructed.  But  if  she  commit  any  breach  of  these  cove¬ 
nants  he  may  immediately  discharge  her.’ 

“  Into  the  hands  of  his  Apprentice — also  now  the  massiere — Mr. 
Whistler  gave  the  opening  of  the  school  the  second  year,  sending  all 
instructions  to  her  from  Pourville,  where  he  was  staying. 

“  Each  new  candidate  for  admission  should  submit  an  example  of 
his  or  her  work  to  the  massiere ,  and  so  prevent  the  introduction  into 
the  Academie  of,  first,  those  who  were  at  present  incompetent  to  place 
a  figure  in  fair  drawing  upon  the  canvas  ;  and  secondly,  those  whose 
instruction  in  an  adverse  manner  of  painting  had  gone  so  far  that  their 
work  would  cause  dissension  and  argument  in  the  Academie.  Unfortu¬ 
nately,  this  order  was  not  well  received  by  some,  though  the  majority 
were  willing  to  accede  to  any  desire  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Whistler. 

“  A  number  absolutely  refused  to  suffer  any  rule,  and  preferred  to 
distrust  what  they  could  not  understand,  and  the  talk  among  the 
students  of  the  Quartier  was  now  in  disparagement  of  the  Academie. 

“  Compositions  were  never  done  in  the  school.  It  was  so  much 
more  important  to  learn  to  paint  and  draw,  for,  as  Mr.  Whistler  said,  ‘  if 
ever  you  saw  anything  really  perfectly  beautiful,  suppose  you  could  not 
draw  and  paint  it  !  ’ — ‘  The  faculty  for  composition  is  part  of  the  artist, 
he  has  it,  or  he  has  it  not — he  cannot  acquire  it  by  study — he  will  only 
learn  to  adjust  the  composition  of  others,  and,  at  the  same  time,  he 
uses  his  faculty  in  every  figure  he  draws,  every  line  he  makes,  while 
in  the  large  sense,  composition  may  be  dormant  from  childhood  until 
maturity,  and  there  it  will  be  found  in  all  its  fresh  vigour,  waiting  for 
the  craftsman  to  use  the  mysterious  quality  in  his  adjustment  of  his 
perfect  drawings  to  fit  their  spaces.’ 

“  The  third  and  last  year  (1900)  of  the  Academie  Carmen  was  marked 
at  its  commencement  by  the  failure  to  open  a  men’s  life-class.  Mr. 
1900]  3S1 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Whistler  had  suffered  so  greatly  during  the  preceeding  years  from  their 
inability  to  comprehend  his  principles  and  also  from  the  short  time  the 
students  remained  in  the  school,  that  at  the  latter  part  of  the  season 
he  often  refused  to  criticise  in  the  men’s  class  at  all.  He  would  call 
sometimes  on  Sunday  mornings  and  take  out  and  place  upon  easels 
the  various  studies  that  had  been  done  by  the  men  the  previous  week, 
and  often  he  would  declare  that  nothing  interested  him  among  them 
and  that  he  should  not  criticise  that  week,  that  he  could  not  face  the 
fatigue  of  the  ‘  blankness  5  of  the  atelier. 

“The  Academie  was  opened  in  October  1900  by  a  woman’s  life- 
class  which  was  well  attended.  The  school  had  been  moved  to  an  old 
building  in  the  Boulevard  Montparnasse,  but  shortly  after  Mr.  Whistler 
was  taken.very  ill  and  he  was  forced  to  leave  England  on  a  long  voyage. 
He  wrote  a  letter  to  the  students  that  never  reached  them,  then,  from 
Corsica,  another,  with  his  best  wishes  for  the  New  Century,  and  his 
explanation  of  the  doctor’s  abrupt  orders.  The  Academie  was  kept 
open  by  the  Apprentice  until  the  end  of  March  (1901),  but  the  faith 
of  the  students  seemed  unable  to  bear  further  trials,  and  after  great 
discontent  at  Mr.  Whistler’s  continued  absence  and  a  gradual  dwindling 
away  of  the  students  until  there  were  but  one  or  two  left,  the  Apprentice 
wrote  of  this  to  Mr.  Whistler.” 

Whistler  wrote  from  Ajaccio  a  formal  letter  of  dismissal  to  the  few 
students  left,  kissing  the  tips  of  their  rosy  fingers,  bidding  them  God¬ 
speed  and  stating  the  case  that  history  might  be  made.  The  reading 
of  the  letter  by  the  massiere  in  the  atelier  closed  the  school,  and  an 
experiment  to  which  Whistler  brought  enthusiasm,  only  to  meet  from 
the  average  student  the  distrust  the  average  artist  had  shown  him  all 
his  life.  One  of  the  last  things  he  did  before  the  close  was  to  make 
an  apprentice  also  of  Mr.  Clifford  Addams,  the  one  man  who  remained 
faithful.  And  in  his  case,  too,  a  Deed  of  Apprenticeship  was  drawn  up 
and  signed. 

The  story  of  the  Academie  is  carried  on  in  the  following  letter  from 
Mr.  Frederick  MacMonnies,  concerning  his  connection  with  it  : 

"...  I  had  always  heard  so  much  about  his  being  impossible,  but 
the  more  I  saw  of  him  the  more  I  realised  that  any  one  who  could  quarrel 
with  him  must  be  written  down  an  ass. 

“  An  instance  of  his  rare  straightforwardness  and  frankness  in 
382  [1901 


The  Academie  Carmen 

friendship  occurred  in  the  Carmen  School.  He  used  to  come  up  to 
my  studio  just  before  breakfast,  and  we  would  go  off  to  Lavenue  s  or 
the  Cafe  du  Cardinal. 

“  One  morning  he  said  he  had  a  great  affair  on  hand.  Carmen  was 
going  to  open  the  school  and  he  had  agreed  to  teach,  a  thing  he  had 
always  said  was  shocking,  useless,  and  encouragement  of  incapables. 
He  suggested  I  help  him  out  with  teaching  the  sculptor  pupils  and  the 
drawing,  so  I  gladly  agreed. 

“  All  the  schools  in  Paris  were  deserted  immediately,  and  the  funny 
little  studios  of  Carmen’s  place  were  packed  with  all  kinds  of  boys  and 
girls,  mostly  Americans,  who  had  tried  all  styles  of  teaching. 

“  Mr.  Whistler,  having  a  full  sense  of  a  picturesque  grande  entree, 
did  not  appear  until  the  school  was  in  full  swing  about  a  week  after  the 
opening,  and  until  the  pupils  had  passed  the  palpitating  stage  and  were 
in  a  dazed  state  of  expectancy  and  half  collapsed  into  nervous  prostration. 
The  various  samples  of  such  awaiting  him  represented  the  methods  of 
almost  every  teacher  in  Paris. 

“  He  arrived,  gloves  and  cane  in  hand,  and  enjoyed  every  minute 
of  his  stay,  daintily  and  gaily  touching  very  weighty  matters.  A  few 
days  after  his  arrival  I  went  to  the  school  and  found  the  entire  crew 
painting  as  black  as  a  hat— delicate,  rose-coloured  pearly  models 
translated  into  mulattoes,  a  most  astonishing  transformation.  As  time 
went  on  the  blackness  increased.  Finally,  one  day,  I  suggested  to  one 
of  the  young  women  who  was  particularly  dreary,  to  tone  her  study  up. 
She  informed  me  she  saw  it  so.  I  took  her  palette  and  keyed  the  figure 
into  something  like  the  delicate  and  brilliant  colouring,  much  to  her 
disgust.  When  I  had  finished,  she  informed  me,  ‘  Mr.  Whistler  told 
me  to  paint  it  that  way.’  I  told  her  she  had  misunderstood,  that  he 
had  never  meant  her  to  paint  untrue.  Several  criticisms  among  the 
men  of  the  same  sort  of  thing,  and  I  left. 

“  Of  course,  all  this  was  carried  to  Whistler,  and  a  few  days  later 
after  breakfast,  over  his  coffee,  he  waved  his  cigarette  towards  me  and 
said,  ‘  Now,  my  dear  MacMonnies,  I  like  you— and  I  am  going  to  talk  to 
you  the  way  your  mother  does  (he  used  to  play  whist  in  Paris  with  my 
mother,  and  they  had  a  most  amusing  combination).  Now,  you  see, 
I  have  always  believed  there  has  been  something  radically  wrong  with 
all  this  teaching  that  has  been  going  on  in  Paris  all  these  years  in  Julian’s 
1901]  383 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

and  the  rest.  I  decided  years  ago  the  principle  was  false.  They  give 
the  young  things  men’s  food  when  they  require  pap.  My  idea  is  to 
give  them  three  or  four  colours— let  them  learn  to  model  and  paint 
the  form  and  line  first  until  they  are  strong  enough  to  use  others.  If 
they  become  so,  well  and  good ;  if  not,  let  them  sink  out  of  sight.’  I 
suggested  the  doubt  that  their  eyes  might  in  this  way  be  trained  to 
see  wrong.  No,  he  did  not  agree  with  that.  Anyway,  I  apologised, 
and  said  I  was  a  presuming  and  meddlesome  ass,  and  if  I  had  known  he 
was  running  his  school  on  a  system,  I  would  have  remained  silent.  If 
you  could  have  seen  the  charming  manner,  the  frank  kindness  and 
friendly  spirit  with  which  he  undertook  to  remonstrate,  you  would 
understand  how  much  I  admired  his  generous  spirit. 

“  Few  men  under  the  circumstances  (I  being  very  much  his  junior) 
would  not  have  made  a  great  row  and  got  upon  their  high  horses,  and 
we  would  have  quit  enemies. 

“  Later,  I  found  that  the  sculptor  pupils  did  not  arrive  in  droves 
to  be  taught  by  me,  and  the  drawing  criticisms  unnecessary,  as  the 
school  had  become  a  tonal  modelling  school  and  my  criticisms  super¬ 
fluous.  I  proposed  to  Mr.  Whistler  that  I  was  de  trof,  and  that  it 
could  only  be  properly  done  by  him.  He  agreed  and  I  left. 

“  M.  Rodin  (or  his  friends)  wished  to  take  my  place,  but  Mr. 
Whistler,  I  heard,  said  he  could  not  under  any  circumstances  have  anyone 
replace  MacMonnies,  as  it  might  occasion  comment  unfavourable  to 
me.  Now  I  consider  that  one  of  the  rarest  of  friendly  actions,  as  I 
knew  he  would  not  have  objected  to  Rodin  otherwise. 

“  A  canny,  croaking  friend  of  mine,  who  hated  Whistler  and  never 
lost  an  opportunity  of  misquoting  and  belittling  him,  dropped  in  at 
my  house  a  few  nights  after  my  resignation  from  the  school,  quite  full 
up  with  croaks  of  delight  that  we  had  fallen  out,  as  he  supposed,  and  that 
the  row  he  had  long  predicted  had  finally  come.  I  laughed  it  off,  and 
after  dinner  a  familiar  knock,  and  who  should  he  ushered  in  but  Mr. 
Whistler,  asking  my  mother  to  play  another  game  of  whist. 

“  A  rather  amusing  thing  occurred  in  my  studio. 

“  A  rich  and  spread-eagle  young  American  got  into  a  tussle  of  wits 
with  Whistler— neither  had  met  before  (Whistler,  however,  knew  and 
liked  his  brother)— on  the  advantage  of  foreign  study  and  life  abroad. 
I  cannot  remember  all  the  distinguished  and  amusing  arguments  or  the 
384  t1901 


MODEL  WITH  FLOWERS 

PASTEL 

In  ihe  possession  of  J.  P.  Heseltine,  Esq. 


{See  page  356) 


The  Academie  Carmen 

delightful  appreciation  of  the  French  people  of  Whistler,  or  of  the 
rather  boring  and  rather  brutal  jabbing  of  the  young  man.  At  any 
rate,  Whistler  defended  himself  admirably,  always  keeping  his  temper, 
which  the  young  man  wished  him  to  lose  in  order  to  trip  him  up.  I  saw 
that  Whistler  was  bored  and  tried  to  separate  them,  but  it  had  gone 
too  far.  Finally,  Whistler  held  out  his  hand  and  with  his  charming 
quizzical  smile  said,  ‘  Good-bye,  oh,  ah,  I  am  so  glad  to  have  met  you— 
on  account  of  your  brother  !  ’ 

“  The  year  before  Whistler  died,  in  December,  I  went  to  America 
on  a  short  trip.  I  hadn’t  been  home  for  a  number  of  years.  Whistler 
had  always  said  he  would  go  back  with  me  some  time,  so  I  telegraphed 
him  at  Bath  to  induce  him  to  come  with  me.  He  replied  by  telegram, 

'  Merry  Xmas,  bon  voyage ,  but  I  fear  you  will  have  to  face  your  country 
without  me.’  ” 

To  anyone  familiar  with  art  schools  Whistler’s  idea  appeared 
revolutionary,  but  he  knew  that  he  was  carrying  on  the  tradition  of 
Gleyre.  Art  schools  are  now  conducted  on  such  different  principles 
that  a  comparison  may  be  useful.  Usually  the  student  is  not  taught  to 
do  anything.  The  master  puts  him  at  drawing,  telling  him,  after  the 
drawing  is  finished,  where  it  is  wrong.  The  student  starts  again  and 
drops  into  worse  blunders  because  he  has  not  been  told  how  to  avoid 
the  first.  If  he  improves,  it  is  by  accident,  or  his  own  intelligence, 
more  than  by  teaching.  At  length,  when  the  pupil  has  learned  enough 
drawing  to  avoid  the  mistakes  of  the  beginner,  and  to  make  it  difficult 
for  the  master  to  detect  his  faults,  he  is  put  at  painting,  and  the  problem 
becomes  twice  as  difficult  for  the  student.  In  drawing,  each  school 
has  some  fixed  method  of  working,  nowhere  more  fixed  than  at  the 
Royal  Academy,  which  leads  to  nothing— or  Paris.  In  painting,  the 
professor  corrects  mistakes  in  colour,  in  tone,  in  value,  which  is  easier 
than  to  correct  drawing,  and  the  student  becomes  more  confused  than 
ever,  for  he  is  in  colour  less  likely  than  in  drawing  to  tumble  unaided 
on  the  right  thing.  As  to  the  use  of  colours,  the  mixing  of  colours, 
the  arrangement  of  the  palette,  the  handling  of  tools— these  are  never 
taught  in  modern  schools.  The  result  is  that  the  new-comer  imitates 
the  older  students— the  favourites— and  shuffles  along  somehow.  Any 
attempt  on  the  part  of  the  master  to  impress  his  character  on  the 
students  would  be  resented  by  most  of  them,  and  any  attempt  at 
J901]  2  B  385 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

individuality  on  their  part  would  be  resented  by  the  master,  for  the 
official  art  school,  like  the  official  technical  school,  is  the  resort  of  the 
incompetent.  The  Royal  Academy  goes  so  far  as  to  change  the  visitors 
in  its  painting  schools — that  is,  the  teachers — every  month,  and  the 
confusion  to  the  student  handed  on  from  Mr.  Sargent  to  Sir  Hubert 
von  Herkomer  and  then  to  Sir  Lawrence  Alma-Tadema  can  hardly  be 
imagined. 

For  this  sort  of  art  school  Whistler  had  no  toleration — its  product 
is  the  amateur  or  Academician.  When  he  was  asked,  “  Then  you  would 
do  away  with  all  the  art  schools  ?  ”  Whistler  answered,  “  Not  at  all, 
they  are  harmless,  and  it  is  just  as  well  when  the  genius  appears  that 
he  should  find  the  fire  alight  and  the  room  warm,  an  easel  close  at  hand 
and  the  model  sitting,  but  I  have  no  doubt  he’ll  alter  the  pose  !  ” 

Whistler  would  have  liked  to  practise  the  methods  of  the  Old  Masters. 
He  would  have  taught  the  students  from  the  beginning,  from  the 
grinding  and  mixing  of  the  colours.  He  believed  that  students  should 
work  with  him  as  apprentices  worked  with  their  masters  in  earlier  times. 
Artists  then  taught  the  student  to  work  as  they  did.  How  much 
individuality,  save  the  master’s,  is  shown  in  Rubens’  canvases,  mostly 
done  by  his  pupils  ?  So  long  as  Van  Dyck  remained  with  Rubens  he 
worked  in  Rubens’  manner,  learning  his  trade.  When  he  felt  strong 
enough  to  say  what  he  wanted  to  say  in  his  own  way  as  an  accomplished 
craftsman,  he  left  the  school  and  set  up  for  himself.  Raphael  was 
trained  in  Perugino’s  studio,  helped  his  master,  and,  when  he  had 
learned  all  he  could  there,  opened  one  of  his  own.  And  this  is  the  way 
Whistler  wished  his  students  to  work  with  him.  The  misfortune  is  that 
he  made  the  experiment  when  it  was  too  late  to  profit  by  the  skill 
of  the  pupils  whom  he  wished  to  train  to  be  of  use  to  him.  He  knew 
that  it  would  take  at  least  five  years  for  students  to  learn  to  use  the 
tools  he  put  in  their  hands,  and  the  fact  that,  at  the  end  of  three  years, 
when  the  school  closed,  a  few  of  his  pupils  could  paint  well  enough  for 
their  painting  to  be  mistaken  for  his  shows  how  right  he  was.  If,  after 
five  years,  they  could  see  for  themselves  the  beauty  that  was  around 
them,  they  would  by  that  time  have  been  taught  how  to  paint  it  in 
their  own  way,  for  what  he  could  do  was  to  teach  them  to  translate 
their  vision  on  to  canvas.  Mr.  Starr  says  that  Whistler  “  told  me  to 
paint  things  exactly  as  I  saw  them.  *  Young  men  think  they  should 
386  [1901 


The  Academie  Carmen 

paint  like  this  or  that  painter.  Be  quite  simple,  no  fussy  foolishness, 
you  know,  and  don’t  try  to  be  what  they  call  strong.  When  a  picture 
smells  of  paint,’  he  said  slowly,  ‘  it’s  what  they  call  strong.’  ” 

Had  his  health  been  maintained,  had  he  not  been  discouraged 
because  students  mostly  came  to  him  with  the  desire  to  do  work  which 
looked  easy,  great  results  would  have  been  accomplished.  His  regret 
was  that  students  did  not  begin  with  him.  Mrs.  Addams  has  told  us  of 
the  great  success  of  one,  Miss  Prince,  who  had  never  been  in  an  art 
school.  She  had  nothing  to  unlearn.  She  understood,  and,  at  the 
end  of  a  year,  had  made  more  progress  than  any.  There  were  excep¬ 
tions  among  the  more  advanced,  men  who  are  to-day  well-known 
artists  and  wTo,  looking  back,  admit  how  much  they  learned.  Frederick 
Frieseke,  Henry  S.  Hubbell,  and  C.  Harry  White  passed  through  the 
school.  One  of  the  few  Frenchmen  was  Simon  Bussy,  who  describes 
Whistler  as  tres  distingue ,  tres  fin ,  tres  autoritaire ,  though  not  so  stimulat¬ 
ing  a  master  as  Gustave  Moreau,  under  whom  he  had  been  studying. 
But  the  greater  number  of  students,  elementary  or  advanced,  thought 
that  Whistler  was  going  to  teach  them,  by  some  short  cut,  to  arrive  at 
distinction.  When  they  found  that,  though  the  system  was  different, 
they  had  to  go  through  the  same  drudgery  as  in  any  school,  they  were 
dissatisfied  and  left.  Moreover,  the  strict  discipline  and  the  separation 
of  the  sexes  were  unpopular.  Nor  could  they  understand  Whistler. 
Many  of  his  sayings  remembered  by  them  explain  their  bewilderment. 

One  day,  Whistler,  going  into  the  class,  found  three  new  pupils. 
To  these  he  said  : 

“  Where  have  you  studied  ?  ” 

“  With  Chase.” 

“  Couldn’t  have  done  better  !  ” 

“  And  where  have  you  studied  ?  ” 

“  With  Bonnat.” 

“  You  couldn’t  have  done  better  !  ” 

“  Where  have  you  studied  ?  ” 

“  I  have  never  studied  anywhere,  Mr.  Whistler.” 

“  I  am  sure  you  could  not  have  done  better  !  ” 

To  the  young  lady  who  told  him  that  she  was  painting  what  she 
saw,  he  answered,  “  The  shock  will  come  when  you  see  what  you 
paint  !  ” 

1901] 


387 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

To  the  man  who  was  smoking,  he  said,  “  Really,  you  had  better  stop 
painting,  for  you  might  get  interested  in  your  work,  and  your  pipe 
would  go  out !  ” 

Of  a  superior  amateur  he  inquired,  “  Have  you  been  through 
college  ?  I  suppose  you  shoot  ?  Fish,  of  course  ?  Go  in  for  foot¬ 
ball,  no  doubt  ?  Yes  ?  Well,  then  I  can  let  you  off  for  painting.” 

We  asked  Whistler  how  much  truth  there  was  in  these  stories.  His 
answer  was  :  "  Well,  you  know,  the  one  thing  I  cannot  be  responsible 
for  in  my  daily  life  is  the  daily  story  about  me.” 

But  he  admitted  they  were,  in  the  main,  true.  He  added  one  inci¬ 
dent  we  have  heard  from  no  one  else  that  explains  a  peculiarity  to  which 
wre  have  referred.  In  Venice,  he  said,  he  got  into  the  habit,  as  he 
worked  on  his  plates,  of  blowing  away  the  little  powder  raised  by  the 
needle  ploughing  through  the  varnish  to  the  copper,  and,  unconsciously, 
he  kept  on  blowing  when  painting  or  drawing.  Once,  after  he  had 
painted  before  the  students  and  had  left  the  studio,  there  was  heard  in 
the  silence  a  sound  of  blowing.  Then  another  student  began  blowing 
away  as  he  worked,  and  so  they  went  on.  “  Well,”  they  said,  “  already 
we  have  la  manure ,  and  that  is  much.”  Whistler  heard  of  it  and  broke 
himself  of  the  habit.  One  day  he  saw  on  the  wall  in  the  men’s  studio, 
written  in  charcoal  : 

“  I  bought  a  'palette  just  like  his, 

His  colours  and  his  brush. 

The  devil  of  it  is,  you  see, 

1  did  not  buy  his  touch." 

Whistler’s  methods  and  manner  confused  the  average  students  who 
came,  but  his  faith  in  his  system  was  as  great  as  the  students’  unbelief. 
He  suggested  that  his  criticisms  of  their  work  should  be  recorded  on 
a  gramophone.  He  thought  of  opening  another  class  in  London. 
The  only  time  E.  saw  the  Academie,  towards  the  beginning  of  the  second 
year,  the  whole  place  was  full  of  life  and  go.  In  the  end,  the  want  of 
confidence  in  him,  his  illness,  and  his  absence  broke  up  the  school.  But 
he  sowed  seed  which  will  bring  forth  a  thousandfold.  For,  just  as 
his  theory  of  art  is  now  recognised  as  he  stated  it  in  ‘The  Ten  O’Clock, 
so  will  his  practice,  proved  by  his  work  and  teaching,  be  accepted  in 
the  future. 

388  [1901 


SEATED  FIGURE 

PASTEL 

In  the  possession  of  Thomas  Way,  Esq. 


( Seepage  356) 


The  Beginning  of  the  End 


CHAPTER  XLV:  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  END.  THE 
YEAR  NINETEEN  HUNDRED. 

In  the  spring  of  1900  an  event  of  great  importance  in  our  relations 
with  Whistler  occurred.  Towards  the  end  of  Map  he  asked  us  to 
write  his  Life.  Now  that  his  fame  was  established,  a  great  deal,  indeed 
far  too  much,  was  written  about  him.  Unauthorised  publications 
appeared  or  were  in  preparation,  and  it  was  evident  that  more  would 
follow.  Whistler  shrank  from  being  written  about  by  people  not  in 
sympathy  with  him  or  incapable  of  understanding  him.  He  was, 
and  is,  to  many  critics  and  commentators  a  riddle  or  an  affront. 
Mistakes  were  made,  facts  were  distorted.  Mr.  Heinemann  sug¬ 
gested,  first  that  he  should  wrke  his  autobiography,  then  that 
his  biography  should  be  written  with  his  authority  by  someone 
in  whom  he  had  confidence.  Mr.  Heinemann  thought  of  Henley, 
but  Whistler  objected.  Mr.  Charles  Whibley  was  proposed  by  Mr. 
Heinemann,  but  again  Whistler  objected.  It  was  after  this  that  either 
Mr.  Heinemann  or  Whistler  mentioned  the  name  of  Joseph  Pennell. 

We  had  been  abroad  for  a  few  days,  and  returned  to  London  on 
May  28  to  find  a  letter  from  Mr.  Heinemann  telling  j.  of  this  “  magni¬ 
ficent  opportunity.”  No  one  could  appreciate  more  fully  the  honour 
as  well  as  the  responsibility.  J.  saw  Whistler  at  once,  and  said,  “  You 
are  the  modern  Cellini  and  you  should  write  it  yourself.” 

Whistler  had  neither  the  time  nor  patience,  but  he  promised  to 
contribute  what  he  could  to  J.’s  book.  We  knew  that  while  staying 
at  Whitehall  Court  he  had  written  twro,  or  perhaps  more,  autobio¬ 
graphical  chapters  at  Mr.  Heinemann’s  suggestion.  Miss  Birnie 
Philip,  after  the  first  edition  of  our  Life  was  published,  though  we  had 
proved  our  authority  in  the  English  Law  Courts,  wrote  to  the  ’Times 
(November  24,  1908)  that  Whistler  “  stated  his  objections  to  bio¬ 
graphers  in  a  fragment  written  in  1896  of  what  was  intended  to  be 
the  story  of  his  life.  The  following  passages  will  make  his  opinions 
clear  : 

“  ‘  Determined  that  no  mendacious  scamp  shall  tell  the  foolish 
truths  about  me  when  centuries  have  gone  by,  and  anxiety  no  longer 
pulls  at  the  pen  of  the  “  pupil  ”  who  would  sell  the  sou,l  of  his  master, 
I  now  proceed  to  take  the  wind  out  of  such  speculator  by  immediately 
1900]  389 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

furnishing  myself  the  fiction  of  my  own  biography,  which  shall  remain, 
and  is  the  story  of  my  life.  .  .  . 

Curiously,  too,  I  find  no  grief  in  noting  the  closing  of  more 
than  one  middle-aged  eye  that  I  had  before  now  caught  turned  warily 
upon  me  with  a  view  to  future  foolscap  improved  from  slight 
intimacy.  .  .  . 

‘  How  tiresome,  indeed,  are  the  Griswolds  of  this  world,  and 
how  offensive.  Pinning  their  unimportant  names  on  the  linen  of  the 
great  as  they  return  the  intercepted  wash,  they  go  down  to  Posterity 
with  their  impudent  bill,  and  Posterity  accepts  and  remembers  them 
as  the  unrequited  benefactors  of  ungrateful  genius  !  ’  ” 

This,  according  to  Miss  Birnie  Philip,  was  written  in  1896.  Whistler 
added  to  the  record,  Mr.  Heinemann  says,  while  living  with  him  at 
Whitehall  Court.  But  Whistler  soon  found  the  task  beyond  him, 
and  so,  changing  his  mind  on  the  subject,  asked  J.  to  write  the  story 
of  his  life  and  his  work  in  1900. 

Almost  immediately  it  was  arranged  that  E.  should  collaborate  and 
that  we  should  do  the  book  together.  Whistler  promised  to  help  us 
in  every  way  and,  when  in  the  mood,  to  tell  us  what  he  could  about 
himself  and  his  life,  with  the  understanding  that  we  were  to  take  notes. 
He  was  not  a  man  from  whom  dates  and  facts  could  be  forced.  Plis 
method  was  not  unlike  that  of  Dr.  Johnson,  who,  when  Boswell  asked 
for  biographical  details,  said,  “  They’ll  come  out  by  degrees  as  we  talk 
together.”  Whistler  had  to  talk  in  his  own  fashion,  or  not  at  all ;  we 
were  to  listen,  no  matter  where  we  met  or  under  what  conditions. 
It  was  also  agreed  that  there  were  to  be  two  volumes,  one  devoted  to 
his  life,  the  other  to  his  work,  and  that  photographs  should  be  taken 
of  the  pictures  in  his  studio  to  illustrate  the  volumes.  Whistler’s 
pictures  were  being  carried  off  only  too  quickly,  and  whatever  we  needed 
for  illustration,  or  as  a  record,  would  have  to  be  photographed  at  once. 

The  duty  of  making  the  notes  fell  to  E.,  and,  from  that  time  until 
his  death,  she  kept  an  account  of  our  meetings  with  him.  He  was  true 
to  his  promise.  We  were  often  in  the  studio,  and  he  spent  evening  after 
evening  with  us.  Sometimes  we  dined  with  him  at  Garlant’s  Hotel 
or  at  the  Cafe  Royal,  sometimes  we  met  at  Mr.  Heinemann’s,  but  usually 
he  dined  with  us  in  Buckingham  Street,  coming  so  frequently  that  he 
said  to  us  one  June  evening  : 

39° 


[1900 


The  Beginning  of  the  End 

“  Well,  you  know,  you  will  feel  about  me  as  I  did  in  the  old  days 
about  the  man  I  could  never  ask  to  dinner  because  he  was  always  there  ! 

I  couldn’t  ask  him  to  sit  down,  because  there  he  always  was,  already  in 

his  chair  !  ” 

Once  he  told  E.  to  write  to  j.,  who  was  out  of  town,  that  he  was 
living  on  our  staircase.  During  those  evenings  he  gave  us  many  facts 
and  much  material  used  in  previous  chapters.  He  began  by  telling 
us  of  the  years  at  home,  his  student  days  in  Paris,  his  coming  to  Chelsea, 
and*  though  dates  were  not  his  strong  point,  we  soon  had  a  consecutive 
story  of  that  early  period.  Every  evening  made  us  wish  more  than  ever 
that  he  could  have  written  instead  of  talking,  for  we  soon  discovered  the 
difficulty  of  rendering  his  talk.  He  used  to  reproach  J.  with  talking 
shorthand,”  but  no  one  was  a  greater  master  of  the  art  than  himself. 
And  so  much  of  its  meaning  was  in  the  pause,  the  gesture,  the  punc¬ 
tuating  hands,  the  laugh,  the  adjusting  of  the  eye-glass,  the  quick  look 
from  the  keen  blue  eyes  flashing  under  the  bushy  eyebrows.  The 
impression  left  with  us  from  the  close  intercourse  of  this  summer  was 
of  his  wonderful  vitality,  his  inexhaustible  youth.  As  yet  illness 
had  not  sapped  his  energy.  He  was  sixty-six,  but  only  the  greyness 
of  the  ever-abundant  hair,  the  wrinkles,  the  loose  throat  suggested  age. 
He  held  himself  as  erect,  he  took  the  world  as  gaily,  his  interests  were  as 
fresh  as  if  he  were  beginning  life.  Some  saw  a  sign  of  feebleness  in 
the  nap  after  dinner,  but  this  was  a  habit  of  long  standing,  and  after 
ten  minutes,  or  less,  he  was  awake,  revived  for  the  talk  that  went  on 
until  midnight  and  later. 

Whistler  wished  us  to  have  the  photographing  in  the  studio  begun 
without  delay.  Our  first  meeting,  after  the  preliminaries  were  settled, 
was  on  June  2,  1900  ;  on  the  6th  the  photographer  and  his  assistant 
were  in  Fitzroy  Street  with  J.  to  superintend.  It  took  long  to  select 
the  things  which  should  be  done  first,  Mr.  Gray,  the  photographer, 
picking  out  those  which  he  thought  would  come  best,  Whistler  preferring 
others  that  Gray  feared  might  not  come  at  all,  though  the  idea  was  that, 
in  the  end,  everything  in  the  studio  should  be  photographed.  Whistler 
found  himself  shoved  in  a  corner,  barricaded  behind  two  or  three  big 
cameras,  and  he  could  scarcely  stir.  He  grew  impatient,  he  insisted 
that  he  must  work.  As  the  light  was  not  good  for  the  photographer, 
some  canvases  were  moved  out  in  the  hall,  some  were  put  on  the  roof, 

1900]  391 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

but  the  best  place  was  discovered  to  be  Mr.  Wimbush’s  studio  in  the 
same  building.  Whistler  went  with  J.  through  the  little  cabinets 
where  pastels  and  prints  were  kept,  and  decided  that  a  certain  number 
must  be  worked  on,  but  that  the  others  could  be  photographed.  Then 
they  lunched  together  with  Miss  B:rnie  Philip,  Gray  photographing 
all  the  while,  and  then  Whistler’s  patience  was  exhausted  and  everybody 
was  turned  out  until  the  next  day,  when  Gray  came  again.  And  the 
next  day,  and  many  next  days,  J.  would  go  to  Fitzroy  Street  and 
Whistler  would  say,  Now  you  must  wait,”  and  he  would  wait  in  the 
little  ante-room  with  Marie,  and  Whistler  would  talk  away  through 
the  open  door  until  J.  was  brought  into  the  studio  to  see  the  finishing- 
touches  added  to  the  day’s  work.  This  explains  the  beginning  of 
our  difficulties  and  the  reason  why  our  progress  was  not  rapid. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  fever  of  work  that  had  taken  hold  of  Whistler. 
He  dreaded  to  lose  a  second.  He  was  rarely  willing  to  leave  the  studio 
during  the  day  or,  if  he  did,  it  was  to  work  somewhere  else,  as  when  he 
went  to  Sir  Frank  Short’s  and,  as  he  told  us  the  same  evening,  pulled 
nineteen  prints  before  lunch,  and  all  the  joy  in  it  came  back,  but  he  did 
not  return  in  the  afternoon,  because,  “  well,  you  know,  my  consideration 
for  others  quite  equals  my  own  energy.”  For  himself  he  had  no 
consideration,  and  his  work  seldom  stopped.  We  remember  one  late 
afternoon  during  the  summer,  when  he  had  asked  us  to  come  to  the 
studio,  finding  tea  on  the  table  and  Whistler  at  his  easel.  “  We  must 
have  tea  at  once  or  it  will  get  cold,”  he  said,  and  went  on  painting. 
Ten  minutes  later  he  said  again,  “  We  must  have  tea,”  and  again  went 
on  painting.  And  the  tea  waited  for  a  half-hour  before  he  could  lay 
down  his  brushes,  and  then  it  was  to  place  the  canvas  in  a  frame  and  look 
at  it  for  another  ten  minutes.  When  an  invited  interruption  was  to  him 
a  hindrance,  he  could  not  but  find  Mr.  Gray,  with  his  huge  apparatus, 
a  nuisance.  A  good  many  photographs,  however,  were  made  at  Fitzroy 
Street,  and  Whistler  helped  to  get  permission  for  pictures  to  be  photo¬ 
graphed  wherever  the  photographing  did  not  interfere  with  his  work. 
In  England,  America,  and  on  the  Continent  many  pictures  which  had 
not  been  reproduced,  and  to  which  access  could  be  obtained,  were 
photographed. 

Nothing  interested  Whistler  more  this  year  than  the  Universal 
Exhibition  in  Paris,  and  he  and  Mr.  John  M.  Cauldwell,  the  American 
392  [1900 


GIRL  WITH  A  RED  FEATHER 
on. 

In  the  possession  of  the  Executors  of  J.  Staats  Forbes 


(See  -bage  357; 


The  Beginning  of  the  End 

Commissioner,  understood  each  other  after  a  first  encounter.  Mr. 
Cauldwell,  coming  to  Paris  to  arrange  the  exhibition,  with  little  time 
at  his  disposal  and  a  great  deal  to  do,  wrote  to  ask  Whistler  to  call  on  a 
certain  day  “at  4.30  sharp.”  Whistler’s  answer  was  that,  though 
appreciating  the  honour  of  the  invitation,  he  regretted  his  inability 
to  meet  Mr.  Cauldwell,  as  he  never  had  been  able  and  never  should  be 
able  to  be  anywhere  “  at  4.30  sharp,”  and  it  looked  as  if  the  unfortunate 
experience  of  1889  might  be  repeated.  But  when  Whistler  met  Mr. 
Cauldwell,  when  he  found  how  much  deference  was  shown  him,,  when 
he  saw  the  decoration  and  arrangement  of  the  American  galleries,  he 
was  more  than  willing  to  be  represented  in  the  American  section.  He 
sent  VAndalouse,  the  portrait  of  Mrs.  Whibley,  Brown  and  Gold,  the 
full-length  of  himself,  and,  at  the  Committee’s  request,  cIhe  Little  White 
Girl,  never  before  seen  in  Paris.  He  brought  together  also  a  fine  group 
of  etchings,  and  when  he  learned  that  he  was  awarded  a  Grand  Pnx  for 
painting  and  another  for  engraving,  he  was  gratified  and  did  not  hesitate 
to  show  it.  The  years  of  waiting  for  the  official  compliment  did  not 
lessen  his  pleasure  when  it  came.  Rossetti  retired  from  the  battle  at  an 
early  stage,  but  Whistler  fought  to  the  end  and  gloried  in  his  victory. 
He  was  dining  at  Mr.  Heinemann’s  when  he  received  the  news,  and  they 
drank  his  health  and  crowned  him  with  flowers,  and  he  enjoyed  it  as 
fully  as  th e  fetes  of  his  early  Paris  days.  J.  was  awarded  a  gold  medal 
for  engraving,  and  we  suggested  that  the  occasion  was  one  for  general 
celebration,  which  was  complete  when  Timothy  Cole,  another  gold 
medallist,  appeared  unexpectedly  as  we  were  sitting  down  to  dinner. 
Mr.  Kennedy  was  one  of  the  party,  and  Miss  Birnie  Philip  came  with 
Whistler,  and  the  little  dinner  was  the  ceremony  he  knew  how  to  make 
of  reunions  of  the  kind.  He  was  pleased  when  he  heard  that  his  medals 
were  voted  unanimously  and  read  out  the  first  with  applause.  A  story 
in  connection  with  the  awards,  told  over  our  table  some  months  later 
by  John  Lambert  returning  from  Paris,  amused  him  vastly.  Though 
it  was  agreed  that  the  first  medals  should  not  be  announced  until  all 
the  others  were  awarded,  the  news  leaked  out  and  got  into  the  papers. 
At  the  next  meeting  of  the  jury,  Carolus-Duran,  always  gorgeous,  was 
more  resplendent  than  ever  in  a  flowered  waistcoat.  He  took  the 
chair,  and  at  once,  with  his  eye  on  the  American  jurors,  said  that 
there  had  been  indiscretions.  Alexander  Harrison  was  up  like  a 

1900]  393 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

shot:  "A  propos  des  indiscretions,  messieurs ,  regardez  le  gilet  de 
Carolus  /  ” 

During  this  time  Whistler  was  paying  not  only  for  his  rooms  at  the 
Hotel  Chatham  in  Paris,  but  for  one  at  Garlant’s  Hotel,  in  addition  to 
the  apartment  in  the  Rue  du  Bac  where  Miss  Birnie  Philip  and  her 
mother  lived  the  greater  part  of  the  year,  for  the  studios  in  the  Rue 
Notre-Dame-des-Champs  and  Fitzroy  Street,  and  lastly,  for  the  “  Com¬ 
pany  of  the  Butterfly”  in  Hinde  Street.  It  was  no  light  burden, 
though  he  had  a  light  way  of  referring  to  his  “  collection  of  chateaux 
and  pleds-d-terre.'>,  His  pockets  were  as  full  as  he  had  wanted  them, 
but  he  could  not  get  used  to  their  not  being  empty.  Once,  afraid  he 
could  not  meet  one  of  his  many  bills  for  rent,  he  asked  a  friend  to 
verify  his  bank  account,  with  the  result  that  six  thousand  pounds  were 
found  to  be  lying  idle. 

Whistler,  as  a  West  Point  man,”  followed  the  Boer  War  with  the 
same  interest  he  had  shown  in  the  Spanish  War.  It  was  a  “  beautiful 
war  ”  on  the  part  of  the  Boers,  for  whom  he  had  unbounded  admiration. 
From  Paris,  through  the  winter,  he  sent  us,  week  by  week,  Caran 
d ’Ache’s  cartoons  in  the  Figaro.  In  London  he  cut  from  the  papers 
despatches  and  leaders  that  reported  the  bravery  of  the  Boers  and  the 
blunders  of  the  British,  and  carried  them  with  him  wherever  he  went. 
His  comments  did  not  amuse  the  “  Islanders,”  whom,  however,  he  knew 
how  to  soothe  after  exasperating  them  almost  beyond  endurance.  One 
evening  J.  walked  back  with  him  to  Garlant’s,  and  they  were  having  their 
whisky-and-soda  in  the  landlady’s  room  while  Whistler  gave  his  version 
of  the  news  of  the  day,  which  he  thought  particularly  psychological. 
Then  suddenly,  when  it  seemed  as  if  the  landlady  could  not  stand  it 
an  instant  longer,  he  turned  and  said  in  his  most  charming  manner, 
“  Well,  you  know,  you  would  have  made  a  very  good  Boer  yourself, 
madam.”  As  he  said  it,  it  became  the  most  amiable  of  compliments, 
and  the  evening  was  finished  over  a  dish  of  choice  peaches  which  she 
hoped  would  please  him.  Another  evening,  the  Boers  were  on  the  point 
of  kindling  a  fatal  war  between  himself  and  a  good  friend,  when  a  bang 
of  his  fist  on  the  table  brought  down  a  picture  from  the  wall  of  our 
dining-room,  and  in  the  crash  of  glass  the  Boers  were  forgotten.  No 
one  who  met  him  during  the  years  of  the  war  can  dissociate  him  from 
this  talk,  and  not  to  refer  to  it  would  be  to  give  a  poor  idea  of  him.  If 
394  t1900 


The  Beginning  of  the  End 

he  had  a  sympathetic  audience,  he  went  over  and  over  the  incidents  of 
the  struggle  ;  the  wonder  of  the  despatches ;  Lord  Roberts’  explana¬ 
tion  that  all  would  have  gone  well  with  the  Suffolks  on  a  certain  occasion 
if  they  had  not  had  a  panic  ;  Mrs.  Kruger  receiving  the  British  Army 
while  the  Boers  retired,  supplied  with  all  they  wanted,  though  they 
went  on  capturing  the  British  soldiers  wholesale  ;  General  Buller’s 
announcement  that  he  had  made  the  enemy  respect  his  rear.  When 
he  was  told  of  despatches  stating  that  Buller,  on  one  occasion,  had  retired 
without  losing  a  man,  or  a  flag,  or  a  cannon,  he  added,  Yes,  or  a  minute. 

He  repeated  the  answer  of  a  man  at  a  lecture,  who,  when  the  lecturer 
declared  that  the  cream  of  the  British  Army  had  gone  to  South  Africa, 
called  out,  “  Whipped  cream.”  The  blunderings  and  the  surrenderings 
gave  Whistler  malicious  joy,  and  he  declared  that  as  soon  as  the  British 
soldier  found  he  was  no  longer  in  a  majority  of  ten  to  one,  he  threw  up 
the  sponge  or  dropped  the  gun.  He  recalled  Bismarck  s  saying  that 
South  Africa  would  prove  the  grave  of  the  British  Empire,  and 
also  that  the  day  would  come  when  the  blundering  of  the  British 
Army  would  surprise  the  world,  and  he  quoted  a  sort  of  profes¬ 
sional  prophet  ”  who  predicted  a  July  that  would  bring  destruction 
to  the  British  :  “  What  has  July  1900  in  store  for  the  Island  ?  ”  he 
would  ask. 

There  was  no  question  of  his  interest  in  the  Boers,  but  neither 
could  there  be  that  this  interest  was  coloured  by  prejudice.  He  never 
forgot  his  “  years  of  battle  ”  in  England,  when,  alone,  he  met  the 
blunderings,  mistakes,  and  misunderstandings  of  the  army  of  artists, 
critics,  and  the  public.  In  his  old  age,  as  in  his  youth,  he  loved  London 
for  its  beauty.  His  friends  were  there,  nowhere  else  was  life  so  congenial, 
and  not  even  Paris  could  keep  him  long  from  London.  But  it  was  his 
boast  that  he  was  an  American  citizen,  that  on  his  father’s  side  he  was 
Irish,  a  Highlander  on  his  mother’s,  and  that  there  was  not  a  drop  of 
Anglo-Saxon  blood  in  his  veins.  He  had  no  affection  for  the  people 
who  persisted  in  their  abuse  and  ridicule  until,  confronted  by  the 
Goupil  Exhibition  of  1 892,  they  were  compelled— however  grudgingly— 
to  give  him  his  due.  This  was  one  reason  why  he  expressed  the  wish 
that  none  of  his  pictures  should  form  part  of  an  English  national  collec¬ 
tion,  or  remain  in  England,  and  emphasised  the  fact  that  his  sitters  at 
the  end  were  American  or  Scotch.  He  conquered,  but  the  conquest 
1900]  39S 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

did  not  make  him  accept  the  old  enemies  as  new  friends.  In  the  posi¬ 
tion  of  the  Boers  he  no  doubt  fancied  a  parallel  with  his  own  when, 
alone,  they  defied  the  English,  who,  on  the  battlefield  as  in  the  apprecia¬ 
tion  of  art,  blundered  and  misunderstood.  Whistler’s  ingenuity  in 
seeing  only  what  he  wanted  to  see  and  in  making  that  conform  to  his 
theories  was  extraordinary.  He  could  not  be  beaten  because,  for  him, 
right  on  the  other  side  did  not  exist.  He  came  nearest  to  it  one  evening 
when  discussing  the  war,  not  with  an  Englishman,  but  with  an  American 
and  an  officer  into  the  bargain,  whom  he  met  in  our  rooms  and  who  said 
that  there  was  always  blundering  at  the  opening  of  a  campaign,  as  at 
Santiago,  where  two  divisions  of  the  United  States  Army  were  drawn 
up  so  that,  if  they  had  fired,  they  must  have  shot  each  other  down. 
It  was  a  shock,  but  Whistler  rallied,  offered  no  comment,  and  was  careful 
afterwards  to  avoid  such  dangerous  ground. 

Prejudice  coloured  all  his  talk  of  the  English,  whose  characteristics 
to  him  were  as  humorous  as  his  were  incomprehensible  to  them.  It 
was  astonishing  to  hear  him  seize  upon  a  weak  point,  play  with  it, 
elaborate  it  fantastically,  and  then  make  it  tell.  The  “  enemies  ” 
suffered  from  his  wit  as  he  from  their  density.  His  artistic  sense 
served  him  in  satire  as  in  everything  else.  One  favourite  subject 
was  the  much-vaunted  English  cleanliness.  He  evolved  an  elaborate 
theory  : 

“  Paris  is  full  of  baths  and  always  has  been  ;  you  can  see  them, 
beautiful  Louis  XV.  and  Louis  XVI.  baths  on  the  Seine  ;  in  London, 
until  a  few  years  ago,  there  were  none  except  in  Argyll  Street,  to  which 
Britons  came  with  a  furtive  air,  afraid  of  being  caught.  And  the 
French,  having  the  habit  of  the  bath,  think  and  say  nothing  of  it, 
while  the  British — well,  they’re  so  astonished  now  they  have  learned 
to  bathe,  they  can’t  talk  of  anything  but  their  tub.” 

The  Bath  Club  he  described  as  “  the  latest  incarnation  of  the 
British  discovery  of  water.”  His  ingenious  answer  was  ready  when 
British  virtue  was  extolled.  He  repeated  to  us  a  conversation  at  this 
time  with  Madame  Sarah  Grand.  She  said  it  was  delightful  to  be  back 
in  England  after  five  or  six  weeks  in  France,  where  she  had  not  seen 
any  men,  except  two,  and  they  were  Germans,  whom  she  could  have 
embraced  in  welcome.  A  Frenchman  never  would  forget  that  women 
are  women.  She  liked  to  meet  men  as  comrades,  without  thought  of 
396  [1900 


The  Beginning  of  the  End 

sex.  Whistler  told  her  :  “  You  are  to  be  congratulated,  madam— 
certainly,  the  Englishwoman  succeeds,  as  no  other  could,  in  obliging 
men  to  forget  her  sex.” 

A  few  days  after,  he  reported  another  “  happy  answer.  He  was 
with  three  Englishmen  and  a  German.  One  of  the  Englishmen  said, 

“  The  trouble  is,  we  English  are  too  honest  ;  we  have  always  been 
stupidly  honest.”  Whistler  turned  to  the  German:  “  You  see,  it  is 
now  historically  acknowledged  that  whenever  there  has  been  honesty 
in  this  country,  there  has  been  stupidity.” 

His  ingenuity  increased  with  the  consternation  it  caused,  and  the 
"  Islander  ”  figured  more  and  more  in  his  talk. 

The  excitement  in  China  this  summer  interested  him  little  less 
than  affairs  in  South  Africa.  He  was  indignant,  not  with  the  Chinese 
for  the  alleged  massacres  at  Pekin,  but  with  Americans  and  Europeans 
for  considering  the  massacres  an  outrage  that  called  for  redress.  After 
all,  the  Chinese  had  their  way  of  doing  things,  and  it  was  better  to  lose 
whole  armies  of  Europeans  than  to  harm  the  smallest  of  beautiful  things 
in  that  great  wonderful  country.  He  said  to  us  one  day  . . 

“  Here  are  these  people  thousands  of  years  older  in  civilisation  than 
us,  with  a  religion  thousands  of  years  older  than  ours,  and  our  missionaries 
go  out  there  and  tell  them  who  God  is.  It  is  simply  preposterous, 
you  know,  that  for  what  Europe  and  America  consider  a  question  of 

honour  one  blue  pot  should  be  risked. 

Another  evening  when  he  said  this  to  a  larger  audience,  one  of  the 
party  asked  him  if  art  did  not  always  mark  the  decadence  of  a  country. 
“  Well,  you  know,”  said  Whistler,  “  a  good  many  countries  manage  to 
go  to  the  dogs  without  it.” 

The  month  of  July  in  London  was  unusually  hot,  and  for  the  first 
time  we  heard  Whistler  complain  of  the  heat,  in  which,  as  a  rule,  he 
revelled,  though  he  dressed  for  it  at  dinner  in  white  duck  trousers  and 
waistcoat  with  his  dinner-jacket,  and  in  the  street  exchanged  his  silk  hat 
for  a  wida-brimmed  soft  grey  felt,  or  a  “dandy”  straw.  He  was 
restless,  anxious  to  stay  in  his  studio,  but,  for  the  sake  of  Miss  Birnie 
Philip  and  her  mother,  anxious  to  go  to  the  country  or  by  the  sea. 
Looking  from  our  windows,  he  would  say  that,  with  the  river  there  and 
the  Embankment  Gardens  gay  with  music  and  people,  we  were  in  no 
need  to  leave  town,  and  we  were  sure  he  envied  us.  One  day  he  went 
1900]  397 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

to  Amersham,  near  London,  with  the  idea  of  staying  there  and  painting 
two  landscapes  somebody  wanted.  Mr.  Wimbush  took  him. 

“  You  know,  really,  I  can’t  say  that,  towards  twilight,  it  is  not  pretty 
in  a  curious  way,  but  not  really  pretty  after  all— it’s  all  country,  and  the 
country  is  detestable.” 

Eventually  he  took  a  house  at  Sutton,  near  Dublin,  persuaded  Mrs. 
and  Miss  Birnie  Philip  to  go  there,  and  then  promptly  left  with  Mr. 
El  well  for  Holland.  He  told  Mr.  Sidney  Starr  once  that  only  one  land¬ 
scape  interested  him,  the  landscape  of  London.  But  he  made  an 
exception  of  Holland.  When  he  was  reminded  that  there  is  no  country 
there,  he  said  to  us  : 

“  That’s  just  why  I  like  it — no  great,  full-blown,  shapeless  trees 
as  in  England,  but  everything  neat  and  trim,  and  the  trunks  of  the  trees 
painted  white,  and  the  cows  wear  quilts,  and  it  is  all  arranged  and 
charming.  And  look  at  the  skies  !  They  talk  about  the  blue  skies  of 
Italy  ;  the  skies  of  Italy  are  not  blue,  they  are  black.  You  do  not 
see  blue  skies  except  in  Holland  and  here,  where  you  get  great  white 
clouds,  and  then  the  spaces  between  are  blue  !  And  in  Holland  there 
is  atmosphere,  and  that  means  mystery.  There  is  mystery  here,  too, 
and  the  people  don’t  want  it.  What  they  like  is  when  the  east  wind 
blows,  when  you  can  look  across  the  river  and  count  the  wires  in  the 
canary  bird’s  cage  on  the  other  side.” 

He  stayed  a  week  at  Domburg,  a  small  sea-shore  village  near  Middel- 
burg.  With  its  little  red  roofs  nestling  among  the  sand-dunes  and  its 
wide  beach  under  the  skies  he  loved,  he  thought  it  enchanting,  and  made 
a  few  water-colours  which  he  showed  us  afterwards  in  the  studio.  The 
place,  he  said,  was  not  yet  exploited,  and  at  Madame  Elout’s  he  found 
good  wine  and  a  Dordrecht  banker  who  talked  of  the  Boers  and  assured 
him  they  were  all  right,  the  Dutch  would  see  to  that.  A  visit  to 
Ireland  followed.  He  went  full  of  expectations,  for  as  the  descendant 
of  the  Irish  Whistlers  he  called  himself  an  Irishman.  We  have  a  note  of 
his  stay  there  from  Sir  Walter  Armstrong,  Director  of  the  National 
Gallery  of  Ireland  : 

“  He  took  a  house,  ‘  Craigie  ’  the  name  of  it,  at  Sutton,  six  miles  from 
Dublin,  on  the  spit  of  sand  which  connects  the  Hill  of  Howth  with  the 
mainland  (as  the  Neutral  Ground  unites  ‘  Gib.’  with  Spain)  on  the 
north  side  of  Dublin  Bay.  There  he  excited  the  curiosity  of  the  natives 
398  [1900 


LILLIE  IN  OUR  ALLEY 
BROWN  AND  GOLD 

OIL 

In  the  possession  of  J.  J.  Cowan,  Esq. 


< See  page  353) 


The  Beginning  of  the  End 

by  at  once  papering  up  the  windows  on  the  north  side  of  the  house, 
for  half  their  height,  with  brown  paper.  He  came  to  dinner  with  me 
one  night,  stipulating  that  he  should  be  allowed  to  depart  at  9-3°>  3S 
he  was  such  an  early  goer  to  bed.  We  dined  accordingly  at  7,  and  his 
Jehu,  with  the  only  closed  fly  the  northern  half  of  County  Dublin  could 
supply,  was  punctually  at  the  door  at  the  hour  named.  There  he  had 
to  wait  for  three  hours,  for  it  was  not  until  12.30  that  the  delightful 
flow  of  Whistler’s  eloquence  came  to  an  end,  and  that  he  extracted  himself 
from  the  deep  arm-chair  which  had  been  his  pulpit  for  four  hours  and  a 
half.  His  talk  had  been  great,  and  we  had  confined  ourselves  to  little 
exclamatory  appreciations  and  gazes  of  wrapt  adoration  !  I  spent  an 
hour  or  two  with  him  in  the  Irish  National  Gallery.  I  found  him 
there  lying  on  the  handrail  before  a  sketch  of  Hogarth  (George  II.  and 
his  family)  and  declaring  it  was  the  most  beautiful  picture  in  the  world. 
The  only  other  remark  on  any  particular  picture  which  I  can  now  recall 
is  his  saying  of  my  own  portrait  by  Walter  Osborne,  ‘  It  has  a  skin,  it  has  a 
skin  !  ’  He  soon  grew  tired  of  Sutton  and  Ireland,  and  when  I  called 
at  Craigie  a  few  days  after  the  dinner  he  had  flown.  He  did  not 
forget  to  send  a  graceful  word  to  my  wife,  signed  with  his  name  and 
Butterfly.” 

He  did  little  work  during  his  visit.  The  house  was  on  the  wrong 
side  of  the  bay,  the  weather  was  wretched,  but  Chester,  on  the  way 
home,  was  “  charming  and  full  of  possibilities.” 

In  September  che  frequent  meetings  were  continued.  The  talk, 
drifting  here  and  there,  touched  upon  many  subjects  belonging  to  no 
particular  period,  but  characteristic  of  his  moods  and  memories.  Thus, 
one  evening,  when  Mr.  W.  B.  Blaikie  was  with  us  and  the  talk  turned 
to  Scotland,  Whistler  told  stories  of  Carlyle.  Aliingham,  he  said,  was 
for  a  time  by  way  of  being  Carlyle’s  Boswell  and  was  always  at  his  heels. 
They  were  walking  in  the  Embankment  Gardens  at  Chelsea,  when 
Carlyle  stopped  suddenly  :  “  Have  a  care,  mon,  have  a  care,  for  ye  have 
a  tur-r -ruble  faculty  for  developing  into  a  bore  !  ”  Carlyle  had  been 
reading  about  Michael  Angelo  with  some  idea  of  writing  his  life  or  an 
essay,  but  it  was  Michael  Angelo,  the  engineer,  who  interested  him. 
Another  day,  walking  with  Aliingham,  they  passed  South  Kensington 
Museum.  “  You  had  better  go  in,”  Aliingham  said.  “  Why,  mon, 
only  fools  go  in  there.”  Aliingham  explained  that  he  would  find 

1900]  399 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

sculpture  by  Michael  Angelo,  and  he  should  know  something  of  the 
artist’s  work  before  writing  his  life.  “  No,”  said  Carlyle,  “  we  need 
only  glance  at  that.” 

Whistler’s  talk  of  Howell  and  Tudor  House  overflowed  with 
anecdotes  of  the  adventurer,  for  whom  he  retained  a  tender  regret,  and 
the  group  gathered  about  Rossetti.  He  accounted  for  Howell’s  down¬ 
fall  by  a  last  stroke  of  inventiveness  when  he  procured  rare,  priceless 
black  pots  for  a  patron  who  later  discovered  rows  of  the  same  pots  in  an 
Oxford  Street  shop.  Whistler  had  a  special  liking  for  the  story  of 
Rossetti  dining  at  Lindsey  Row,  at  the  height  of  the  blue  and  white  craze, 
and  becoming  so  excited  when  his  fish  was  served  on  a  plate  he  had 
never  seen  before  that  he  forgot  the  fish  and  turned  it  over,  fish  and  all, 
to  look  at  the  mark  on  the  back.  Another  memory  was  of  a  dinner  at 
Mr.  lonides’,  with  Rossetti  a  pagan,  Sir  Richard  Burton  a  Mohammedan, 
Lady  Burton  a  Catholic.  They  fell  into  a  hot  argument  over  religion, 
but  Whistler  said  nothing.  Lady  Burton,  who  was  in  a  state  of  exalta¬ 
tion,  could  not  stand  his  silence  :  “  And  what  are  you,  Mr.  Whistler  ?  ” 
“  I,  madam,”  he  answered,  “  why,  I  am  an  amateur  !  ”  He  spent  many 
evenings  drawing  upon  his  memory  of  the  “  droll  ”  and  “  joyous  ” 
things  of  the  past.  But  the  past  brought  him  back  with  redoubled 
interest  to  the  present,  in  which  so  much  waited  to  be  done. 

In  October  we  began  to  notice  a  change,  and  we  knew  that  when 
he  worried  there  was  cause.  He  was  called  to  Paris  once  or  twice  about 
the  school  and  his  “  chateaux  and  fieds-d-terre .”  After  one  of  these 
journeys  he  was  laid  up  with  a  severe  cold  at  Mr.  Heinemann’s.  In 
November  he  was  in  bed  for  many  days  at  Garlant’s.  He  had  other 
worries.  British  critics  conspired  either  to  ignore  his  success  at  the 
Paris  Exhibition,  or  account  for  it  sneeringly  or  lyingly.  He  was 
irritated  when  he  read  an  article  on  the  Exhibition,  signed  D.  S.  M.,  in 
the  Saturday  Review  devoted  altogether,  he  told  us,  to  Manet  and 
Fantin,  with  only  a  passing  reference  to  himself  : 

“  Manet  did  very  good  work,  of  course,  but  then  Manet  was  always 
Vecolier — the  student  with  a  certain  sense  of  things  in  paint,  and  that 
is  all ! — he  never  understood  that  art  is  a  positive  science,  one  step  in 
it  leading  to  another.  He  painted,  you  know,  in  ia  manure  mire ,  the 
dark  pictures  that  look  very  well  when  you  come  to  them  at  Durand- 
Ruel’s,  after  wandering  through  rooms  of  screaming  blues  and  violets 
400  [1900 


The  Beginning  of  the  End 

and  greens,  but  he  was  so  little  in  earnest  that  midway  in  his  career 
he  took  to  the  blues  and  violets  and  greens  himself.  You  know,  it  is 
the  trouble  with  so  many ;  they  paint  in  one  way— brilliant  colour,  say — 
they  see  something,  like  Ribot,  and,  dear  me,  they  think,  we  had  better 
try  to  do  this  too,  and  they  do  and,  well,  really,  you  know,  in  the  end 
they  do  nothing  for  themselves  !  ” 

He  was  furious  with  the  critic  who  stated  that  his  medal  was  awarded 
for  The  Little  White  Girl.  The  statement  was  offensive  because,  he 
said,  “the  critics  are  always  passing  over  recent  work  for  early  master¬ 
pieces,  though  all  are  masterpieces ;  there  is  no  better,  no  worse  ;  the 
work  has  always  gone  on,  it  has  grown,  not  changed,  and  the  pictures 
I  am  painting  now  are  full  of  qualities  they  cannot  understand  to-day 
any  better  than  they  understood  The  Little  White  Girl  at  the  time  it 
was  painted.” 

This  was  an  argument  he  often  used.  A  few  evenings  after,  he 
told  a  man,  who  suggested  that  Millet’s  later  work  was  not  so  good 
because  he  was  married  and  had  to  make  both  ends  meet,  “  You’re 
wrong.  An  artist’s  work  is  never  better,  never  worse  ;  it  must  be  always 
good,  in  the  end  as  in  the  beginning,  if  he  is  an  artist,  if  it  is  in  him  to 
do  anything  at  all.  He  would  not  be  influenced  by  the  chance  of  a  wife 
or  anything  of  that  kind.  He  is  always  the  artist.” 

He  was  annoyed  because  critics  could  not  see  a  truth  which  to  him 
was  simple  and  obvious.  His  annoyance  culminated  when  the  Magazine 
of  Art  not  only  said  the  Grand  Prix  was  awarded  for  The  Little  White 
Girl ,  but  protested  against  the  award,  because  the  picture  was  painted 
before  the  ten  years’  limit  imposed  by  the  French  authorities,  a  protest 
printed  in  other  papers.  Whistler  could  not  bear  this  in  silence,  for 
it  looked  like  an  effort  to  deprive  him  of  his  first  high  award  from  a 
Paris  Exhibition.  The  attack  was  disgraceful.  Whistler’s  two  other 
pictures  were  his  most  recent,  and,  as  we  have  said,  The  Little  White 
Girl  was  specially  invited.  As  soon  as  he  was  well  enough,  he  came 
to  us  several  times,  with  Mr.  William  Webb,  his  solicitor,  to  talk  the 
affair  over.  As  a  result,  an  apology  was  demanded,  and  made.  This 
belittling  of  certain  pictures  in  favour  of  others,  with  its  inevitable 
inference,  offended  him,  in  the  end  as  in  the  beginning.  Mr.  Sargent 
writes  us  an  instance  of  his  manner  of  carrying  off  the  offence  before 
the  world.  Somebody  brought  him  a  commission  for  a  painting, 
1900]  2  C  401 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

stipulating  that  it  should  be  “  a  serious  work.”  Whistler’s  answer 
was  that  he  “  could  not  break  with  the  traditions  of  a  lifetime.” 

Another  worry  he  should  have  been  spared  was  a  dispute  with  one 
of  the  tenants  at  the  Rue  du  Bac,  a  trivial  matter  which,  in  his  nervous 
state,  loomed  large  and  made  him  unnecessarily  miserable.  The  carpets 
of  the  lady  on  the  floor  above  him  were  shaken  out  of  her  windows  into 
his  garden,  and  it  could  not  be  stopped.  He  tried  the  law,  but  was 
told  he  must  have  disinterested  witnesses  outside  the  family.  If  he 
engaged  a  detective,  a  month  might  pass  before  she  would  do  it  again. 
But  it  chanced  that,  while  beating  a  carpet,  it  fell  into  his  garden,  and 
his  servants  refused  to  give  it  up.  The  lady  went  to  law  and  his  lawyer 
advised  him  to  return  the  carpet.  It  depressed  him  hopelessly,  and  as 
he  had  long  ceased  to  live  in  the  Rue  du  Bac,  we  could  not  understand 
why  he  should  have  heard  of  so  petty  a  domestic  squabble. 

Ill  and  worried  as  he  was,  our  work  at  intervals  came  to  a  standstill. 
When  he  felt  better  and  stronger  the  talks  went  on,  but  at  moments 
he  seemed  almost  to  fear  that  the  book  would  prove  an  obituary.  Once 
he  said  to  us  that  we  “  wanted  to  make  an  Old  Master  of  me  before  my 
time,”  and  we  had  too  much  respect  and  affection  for  him  to  add  to  his 
worries  by  our  importunity.  With  the  late  autumn  his  weakness 
developed  into  serious  illness.  By  the  middle  of  November  he  was 
extremely  anxious  about  himself,  for  his  cough  would  not  go.  The 
doctor’s  diagnosis,  he  said,  was  “  lowered  in  tone  :  probably  the  result 
of  living  in  the  midst  of  English  pictures.”  A  sea  journey  was  advised, 
and  Tangier  suggested  for  the  winter.  When  he  was  with  us  he  could 
not  conceal  his  anxiety.  If  he  sneezed,  he  hurried  away.  He  fell 
asleep  before  dinner  was  over ;  sometimes  he  could  hardly  keep  awake 
through  the  evening.  Once  or  twice  he  seemed  to  be  more  than 
asleep,  when  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  rouse  him,  which  was  not 
easy,  and  we  were  extremely  frightened  until  we  could,  and,  indeed, 
until  J.  got  him  back  to  Garlant’s.  He  would  never  trust  himself  to 
the  night  air  until  Augustine  had  mixed  him  a  hot  “  grog.”  Tangier 
did  not  appeal  to  him,  and  he  asked  J.  to  go  with  him  to  Gibraltar, 
stay  a  while  at  Malaga,  and  then  come  back  by  Madrid  to  see  at  last  the 
pictures  he  had  always  wanted  to  see.  He  was  hurt  when  J.’s  work 
made  it  impossible  for  him  to  leave  London. 

In  December  Whistler  gave  up  the  struggle  to  brave  the  London 

[1900 


4°2 


In  Search  of  Health 


winter,  and  decided  to  sail  for  Gibraltar,  on  the  wa y  to  Tangier  and 
Algiers,  with  Mr.  Birnie  Philip,  his  brother-in-law,  to  take  care  of  him. 
Sir  Thomas  Sutherland,  Chairman  of  the  P.  &  O.  Company,  arranged 
for  every  comfort  on  the  voyage.  But,  as  usual,  there  were  complica¬ 
tions  at  the  last  moment — as  usual,  the  fearful  trouble  of  getting 
off  from  his  studio.  Everybody  was  pressed  into  his  service  and  kept 
busy,  all  the  waiters  in  the  hotel  were  in  attendance.  The  day  before 
he  was  to  start  he  discovered  that  his  etching  plates  needed  to  be  re¬ 
grounded  and  he  sent  them  to  J.,  who  agreed  to  do  what  he  could  at 
such  short  notice,  but  warned  him  that  there  was  not  time  to  ground 
the  plates  properly  and  that  very  likely  they  would  be  spoiled.  Whistler 
sent  for  them  in  the  evening  and,  instead  of  leaving  them  out  to  dry 
until  the  morning,  wrapped  them  up  and  packed  them  among  the  linen 
in  his  trunk.  It  was  extraordinary  that  a  man  so  careful  about  his 
work  should  always  have  wanted  somebody  else  to  ground  his  plates  or 
prepare  his  canvases,  or  do  something  as  important,  that  he  should 
have  done  for  himself,  and  that  oftener  than  not  he  should  have  wanted 
it,  as  on  this  occasion,  at  the  last  moment.  However,  with  the  help 
of  his  friends  and  the  waiters  and  his  family,  he  was  got  ready  in  time, 
and  on  December  14  he  started  for  the  South. 


CHAPTER  XLVI  :  IN  SEARCH  OF  HEALTH,  THE  YEARS 
NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND  ONE  AND  NINETEEN 
HUNDRED  AND  TWO. 

As  soon  as  Whistler  got  away  from  London  he  was  unhappy.  At 
Tangier  the  wind  was  icy,  at  Algiers  it  rained,  and  everywhere  when 
it  was  clear  the  sky  was  “hard”  and  the  sea  was  “black.”  Snow 
was  falling  at  Marseilles,  and  he  was  kept  in  his  room  for  a  couple  of 
weeks,  so  ill  he  had  to  send  for  a  doctor,  and  he  was  only  comforted 
when  he  found  the  doctor  delightful,  Corsica  was  recommended  and, 
as  “  Napoleon’s  Island,”  attracted  Whistler.  When  he  was  well 
enough  Mr.  Birnie  Philip  left  him,  and  he  sailed  alone  for  Ajaccio. 
Here  he  stayed  at  the  Hotel  Schweizerhof.  The  weather  at  first  was 
abominable,  so  cold  and  the  wind  so  treacherous  that  he  coul,d  not  work 
out  of  doors,  and  he  felt  his  loneliness  acutely.  Fortunately  he  made 
1901]  403 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

a  friend  of  the  Curator  of  the  Museum,  and  Mr.  Heinemann  joined 
him  for  a  time.  They  loitered  about  together  in  the  quaint  little 
town,  went  to  see  the  house  where  Napoleon  was  born— “a  great 
experience  ’’—spent  many  rainy  hours  in  the  cafe  where  Mr.  Heinemann 
taught  him  to  play  dominoes,  a  resource  not  only  then  but  the  rest  of 
his  life.  They  played  for  the  price  of  their  coffee,  and  Whistler  cheated 
with  a  brilliancy  that  made  him  easily  a  winner,  but  that  horrified  a 
German  who  sometimes  took  a  hand,  though  the  naivete  of  Whistler  s 
“  system  ”  could  not  have  deceived  a  child. 

He  was  by  no  means  idle,  and  he  brought  back  a  series  of  exquisite 
pen  and  pencil  drawings  begun  at  Tangier.  A  few  water-colours  were 
made,  and  when  the  weather  gave  him  a  chance  he  worked  on  his 
copper-plates.  He  bit  one  or  two  that  J.  had  grounded  in  London, 
and  the  ground  came  off.  He  did  not  know  how,  or  did  not  have  the 
courage  to  prevent  it.  We  can  only  wonder  again  that  a  man  who 
made  such  wonderful  plates  did  not  know  what  to  do,  or  did  not  dare 
do  it,  in  difficulties  of  this  sort,  preferring  to  rely  upon  somebody 
else.  He  had  drawn  on  some  of  the  other  plates  before  he  began  to 
bite  any  of  them,  and  he  may  have  done  more  than  have  as  yet  been 
seen,  "in  Mr.  Howard  Mansfield’s  and  the  Grolier  catalogues  only 
one  plate  in  Corsica  is  recorded,  in  both  called  The  Bohemians.  But 
as  J.  grounded  ten  or  a  dozen  for  Whistler,  and  as  he  spoke  to  us  of 
more  than  one  bitten,  it  is  probable  that  the  plates  exist.  “All  my 
dainty  work  lost,”  he  wrote  to  us  from  Corsica,  and  it  looked  as  if  the 
shadow  had  fallen  upon  our  friendship.  But  he  understood,  and  the 
shadow  passed  as  quickly  as  it  came.  There  were  other  schemes.  One 
day,  after  his  return,  he  told  Mr.  Clifford  Addams  that  he  had  seen  a 
great  black-bearded  shepherd,  on  a  horse,  carrying  a  long  pole,  coming 
down  a  hill-side,  of  whom  he  wanted  to  make  a  large  equestrian  portrait. 
But  he  never  started  it.  He  felt  he  was  not  able. 

The  closing  of  the  school  in  Paris  occupied  and  worried  him,  and 
he  was. arranging  for  a  show  of  pastels  and  prints  at  the  Luxembourg. 
One  pleasure,  of  which  he  wrote  to  us,  came  from  “new  honours”  in 
Dresden,  where  he  was  awarded  a  gold  medal  and  elected  unanimously 
to  the  Academie  Royale  des  Beaux-Arts.”  He  was  more  tired  than  he 
admitted  in  his  letters,  dwelling  little  on  his  fatigue,  and  insisting  that 
the  doctor  in  Marseilles  found  nothing  was  the  matter  with  him.  But 


SEA 

WATER-COLOUR 

In  tlie  possession  of  Mrs.  A.  M.  Jarvis 


In  Search  of  Health 

he  was  never  strong  after  the  autumn  of  1900,  and  earlier  than  this  the 
doctor  in  London  warned  his  friends  that  he  was  failing. 

He  was  more  hopeful  because  at  Ajaccio  he  said  he  had  discovered 
what  was  the  matter  with  him  : 

“  At  first,  though  I  got  through  little,  I  never  went  out  without  a 
sketch-book  or  an  etching-plate.  I  was  always  meaning  to  work,  always 
thinking  I  must.  Then  the  Curator  offered  me  the  use  of  his  studio. 
The  first  day  I  was  there  he  watched  me,  but  said  nothing  until  the 
afternoon.  Then-'  But,  Mr.  Whistler,  I  have  looked  at  you,  I  have 
been  watching.  You  are  all  nerves,  you  do  nothing.  You  try  to,  but 
you  cannot  settle  down  to  it.  What  you  need  is  rest— to  do  nothing— 
not  to  try  to  do  anything.’  And  all  of  a  sudden,  you  know,  it  struck 
me  that  I  had  never  rested,  that  I  never  had  done  nothing,  that  it  was 
the  one  thing  I  needed.  And  I  put  myself  down  to  doing  nothing- 
amazing,  you  know.  No  more  sketch-books,  no  more  plates.  I  just 
sat  in  the  sun  and  slept.  I  was  cured.  You  know,  Joseph  must  sit  in 
the  sun  and  sleep.  Write  and  tell  him  so.” 

He  was  sufficiently  recovered  to  take  his  old  joy  in  the  “  Islanders,” 
into  the  midst  of  whom  he  fell  on  the  P.  &  O.  steamer  coming  back 
from  Marseilles : 

“  Nobody  but  English  on  board,  and,  after  months  of  not  seeing 
them,  really  they  were  amazing  :  there  they  all  were  at  dinner,  you 
know — the  women  in  low  gowns,  the  men  in  dinner  jackets.  They 
might  look  a  trifle  green,  they  might  suddenly  run  when  the  ship 
rolled— but  what  matter  ?  There  they  were— men  in  dinner  jackets, 
stewards  behind  their  chairs  in  dinner  jackets— and  so  all  s  right  with 
the  country  !  And,  do  you  know,  it  made  the  whole  business  clear  to 
me  down  there  in  South  Africa.  At  home  every  Englishman  does  his 
duty appears  in  his  dinner  jacket  at  the  dinner  hour  and  so,  what 
difference  what  the  Boers  are  doing  ?  All  is  well  with  England  !  You 
know,  you  might  just  as  well  dress  to  ride  in  an  omnibus  !  ” 

Whistler  returned  from  Corsica  at  the  beginning  of  May  in  excellent 
spirits.  He  came  to  us  on  the  day  of  his  arrival.  We  give  one  small 
incident  that  followed  because  it  shows  the  simplicity  he  was  careful  to 
conceal  from  the  world  he  liked  to  mystify.  J.  was  in  Italy  and  E.f 
that  afternoon,  on  her  way  back  from  the  Continent.  At  our  door  he 
met  our  French  maid,  Augustine,  starting  for  Charing  Cross,  and  he 
1901]  4°5 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

walked  with  her  to  the  station,  where  she  was  to  meet  E.,  while  she 
gave  him  the  news.  Her  account  was  that  everybody  stared,  which 
was  not  surprising.  He,  always  a  conspicuous  figure,  was  the  more  so 
in  his  long  brown  overcoat  and  round  felt  hat,  en  voyage,  while  she  wore 
a  big  white  apron  and  was  en  cheveux.  Moreover,  their  conversation 
was  animated.  She  invited  him  to  dinner,  promising  him  dishes  which 
she  knew  would  tempt  him,  and  he  accepted.  He  appeared  a  little 
before  eight.  “  Positively  shocking  and  no  possible  excuse  for  it,  he 
said,  “  but,  well,  here  I  am  !  ” 

Work  was  taken  up  in  the  studio,  our  talks  were  resumed,  his  interest 
in  the  Boer  War  grew,  the  heat  he  had  not  found  in  the  South  was 
supplied  by  London  in  June  and  July,  and  from  the  heat  he  gained 
strength.  He  came  and  went,  as  of  old,  between  Garlant’s  Hotel  and 
Buckingham  Street,  until  he  declared  that  the  cabbies  in  the  Strand 
knew  him  as  well  as  the  cabbies  in  Chelsea.  It  had  ever  been  his  boast 
that  he  was  known  to  almost  every  cabman  in  London,  as,  indeed,  he 
was.  The  tales  of  his  encounters  with  them  were  numerous,  for,  if 
lavish  in  big  things,  he  could  sometimes  be  “  narrow  ”  in  small,  and 
his  drives  occasionally  ended  in  differences.  The  only  time  we  knew 
the  cabby  to  score  was  one  day  this  year,  when  J.  was  walking  from 
the  studio  with  him.  “  Kibby,  kibby,”  Whistler  cried  to  a  passing 
cab,  not  seeing  the  “fare”  inside.  The  cabman  drew  up,  looked 
down  at  him,  looked  him  over,  and  said,  “  Where  did  yer  buy  yer  ’at  ? 
Go,  get  yer  ’air  cut  !  ”  and  drove  off  at  a  gallop.  Whistler,  safe  inside 
an  omnibus,  laughed  at  the  adventure. 

But  the  summer  was  full  of  adventures.  Another  afternoon  he 
and  J.  were  walking  in  the  Strand  when  a  well-known  English  artist 
stopped  him  with,  “  Why,  my  dear  old  Jimmie,  how  are  you  ?  I 
haven’t  seen  you  or  spoken  to  you  for  twenty  years !  ”  Whistler  turned 
slowly  to  J.  and  said,  “  Joseph,  do  you  know  this  person  ?  ”  And  the 
person  fled.  “  H’m,”  said  Whistler,  “  hasn’t  spoken  to  me  for  twenty 
years— guess  it  will  be  another  twenty  before  he  dares  again.” 

We  were  abroad  a  great  part  of  the  summer  of  1901,  and  when  we 
got  back  his  weakness  had  returned  with  the  cold  and  the  damp  and 
the  fog.  He  had  realised  the  uselessness  of  keeping  up  his  apartment  and 
studio  in  Paris,  the  state  of  his  health  making  it  impossible  for  him  to 
live  in  the  one  or  to  climb  to  the  other,  and  business  in  connection  with 
406  C1901 


In  Search  of  Health 

closing  them  took  him  to  Paris  in  October.  Towards  the  beginning  of 
the  month  he  was  ill  in  bed  at  Garlant’s  Hotel,  and  towards  the  end  at 
Mr.  Heinemann’s  in  Norfolk  Street.  When  well  enough  to  go  out  he 
was  afraid  to  come  to  us  in  the  evening  :  “  Buckingham  Street  at  night, 
you  know,  a  dangerous,  if  fascinating  place  !  ”  He  would  not  dine 
where  he  could  not  sleep,  he  said,  “  J’y  dine ,  j’y  dort ,”  and  in  our  small 
flat  he  knew  there  was  no  corner  for  him.  Early  in  November  he 
moved  to  Tallant’s  Hotel,  North  Audley  Street,  and  there  he  was  very 
ill  and  more  alarmed  than  ever.  “  This  time  I  am  very  much  bowled 
over,  unable  to  think,”  he  told  E.  when  she  went  to  see  him,  and, 
though  he  laughed,  he  was  depressed  by  his  landlady’s  recommendation 

of  his  room  as  the  one  where  Lord - died.  “  I  tried  to  make  her 

understand,”  he  said,  “  that  what  I  wanted  was  a  room  to  live  in.”  He 
looked  the  worse  because  in  illness,  as  in  health,  he  had  the  faculty  of 
inventing  extraordinary  costumes.  E.  remembers  him  there,  after  he 
was  able  to  get  up,  in  black  trousers,  a  white  silk  night-shirt  flowing 
loose,  and  a  short  black  coat. 

Illness  made  Whistler  more  of  a  wanderer,  and  for  months  he  was 
denied  the  rest  he  knew  he  needed.  From  Tallant’s,  in  November,  he 
went  to  Mrs.  Birnie  Philip’s  in  Tite  Street,  Chelsea.  Here  he  never 
asked  his  friends,  and  we  saw  less  of  him.  The  first  week  in  December 
he  left  London  for  Bath,  where  he  took  rooms  in  one  of  the  big  Crescents, 
and  where  he  thought  he  could  work.  There  were  shops  in  which  to 
hunt  for  ‘‘old  silver  and  things,”  in  a  vague  way  people  seemed  to 
know  him,  and,  on  the  whole,  Bath  pleased  him.  He  lost  few  excuses, 
however,  for  coming  to  London,  and  was  in  town  almost  all  of  January. 
On  some  days  he  was  surprisingly  well.  He  went  to  the  Old  Masters 
Exhibition  at  the  Royal  Academy  especially  to  see  the  Kingston  Lacy 
Las  Menifias,  and  he  told  us  the  same  day  : 

“  It  is  full  of  things  only  Velasquez  could  have  done — the  heads  a 
little  weak  perhaps — but  so  much,  or  everything,  that  no  one  else 
could  have  painted  like  that.  And  up  in  a  strange  place  they  call  the 
Diploma  Gallery  I  saw  the  Spanish  Phillip’s  copy  of  Las  Menifias ,  full 
of  atmosphere  really,  and  dim  understanding.” 

Ochtervelt’s  Lady  Standing  at  a  Spinet  interested  him,  suggesting 
a  favourite  theme  : 

“  The  Dutchmen  knew  how  to  paint— they  had  respect  for  the 

J902]  407 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

surface  of  a  picture  ;  the  modern  painter  has  no  respect  for  anything 
but  his  own  cleverness,  and  he  is  sometimes  so  clever  that  his  work  is 
like  that  of  a  bad  boy,  and  I’m  not  sure  that  he  ought  not  to  be  taken 
out  and  whipped  for  it.  Cleverness ! — well,  cleverness  has  nothing 
to  do  with  art ;  there  can  be  the  same  sort  of  cleverness  in  painting  as 
that  of  the  popular  officer  who  cuts  an  orange  into  fancy  shapes  after 
dinner.” 

He  was  severe  on  contemporary  artists  who  forgot  the  standard  of 
the  Louvre,  the  only  standard  he  recognised.  Of  Conder  he  said, 
“  II  est  tropjoli  pour  Hre  beau  !  ”  and  of  a  follower  of  Rodin,  “  He  makes 
a  landscape  out  of  a  man.”  When  he  saw  Watts’  Hope  his  comment 
was,  “The  hope  that  maketh  the  heart  sick.”  Watts  he  always  called 
“  ce  jaux  Titien “Except  in  England,  would  anything  short  of 
perfection  in  art  be  praised  ?  ”  he  said.  “  Why  approve  the  tolerable 
picture  any  more  than  the  tolerable  egg  ?  ”  A  sitter  dissatisfied  wdth 
his  portrait  told  Whistler  it  was  not  good.  “Do  you  call  it  a  good 
piece  of  art  ?  ”  he  asked.  “  Well,”  said  Whistler,  “  do  you  call  yourself 
a  good  piece  of  Nature  ?  ” 

One  day  a  man  rushed  into  a  hat  store  and,  as  Whistler  was  hatless, 
being  fitted,  bellowed,  “  I  say,  this  hat  don’t  fit.”  “  Your  coat  don’t, 
either,”  Whistler  answered. 

One  or  two  evenings  he  risked  the  night  air  to  come  to  us  and  his 
talk  was  as  gay  and  brilliant —reminiscent,  critical,  “  wicked,”  as  the 
mood  took  him,  and  at  times  serious.  We  remember  his  earnestness 
when  he  recalled  the  seances  and  spiritual  manifestations  at  Rossetti’s, 
in  which  he  believed.  He  could  not  understand  the  people  who 
pretended  to  doubt  the  existence  of  another  world  and  the  hereafter. 
His  faith  was  strong,  though  vague  when  there  was  question  of  analysing 
it.  Probably  he  never  tried  to  reduce  it  to  dogma  and  doctrine,  and, 
in  that  sense,  he  wras  “  the  amateur  ”  he  described  himself  in  jest.  If 
his  inclination  turned  to  any  special  creed  it  was  to  Catholicism.  “  The 
beauty  of  ritual  is  with  the  Catholics,”  he  said.  But  his  work  left  him 
no  time  to  study  these  problems,  and  his  belief  perhaps  was  stimulated 
by  the  mystery  in  which  it  was  lost.  He  would  have  been  more 
credulous  and  interested  than  anybody  could  he  have  foreseen  the 
messages  to  be  received  from  him  by  an  artist,  and  the  book  to  be 
written  by  him  for  an  author,  after  his  death. 

408  [1902 


In  Search  of  Health 

On  other  days  London  apparently  was  tiring  him  and  he  dozed  off 
and  on  through  his  visits.  He  expended  much  energy  in  sending  some 
old  pieces  of  silver  to  the  doctor  at  Marseilles  and  the  Curator  at 
Ajaccio,  who  had  been  kind  to  him.  He  was  full  of  these  little  courtesies 
and  never  forgot  kindness,  just  as  he  never  failed  to  show  it  to  those 
who  appealed  to  him,  whether  it  was  to  find  a  publisher  for  an 
unsuccessful  illustrator,  or  a  gallery  for  an  unsuccessful  painter, 
or  even,  as  we  know  happened  once,  to  support  a  morphomaniac  for 
months. 

A  shorter  visit  to  town  was  made  solely  to  attend  a  meeting  of  the 
International  Society  because  his  presence  was  particularly  desired. 
This  was  one  of  the  occasions  that  proved  the  sincerity  and  activity  of 
his  devotion  to  the  Society  and  its  affairs.  It  is  a  satisfaction  that  this 
devotion  was  appreciated  and  that  the  loyalty  of  the  Council  was  not 
shaken  during  his  lifetime. 

In  March  Whistler  came  back  to  Tite  Street,  but,  as  we  have  said, 
he  asked  no  one  while  he  stayed  with  “  the  Ladies,  his  name  ior  his 
mother-  and  sisters-in-law.  There  was  one  almost  clandestine  meeting 
with  Professor  Sauter,  Whistler’s  desire  to  hear  about  the  Boers,  to 
whom  he  “  never  referred,  of  course,  in  the  presence  of  the  Ladies, 
becoming  too  strong  to  be  endured,  and  he  could  rely  upon  Sauter  for 
sympathy  and  the  latest  news.  It  was  an  interval  of  mystery  in  the 
studio.  No  one  was  invited,  few  were  admitted,  nothing  was  heard  of 
the  work  being  done.  Whistler  liked  to  keep  up  an  effect  of  mystery  in 
his  movements,  but  we  have  never  known  him  to  carry  it  so  far  as 
during  the  first  month  or  so  after  his  return  from  Bath.  At  last  J. 
was  summoned.  Whistler  would  not  let  him  come  further  than  the 
ante-room,  talking  to  him  through  the  open  door  or  the  thin  partition, 
but  presently,  probably  forgetting,  called  him  into  the  studio  and  went 
on  painting,  and  he  forgot  the  mystery.  Whistler  felt  he  had  little 
strength  and  devoted  that  little  to  his  work.  But,  even  in  ill-health, 
he  could  not  live  without  people  about  him,  and  he  soon  fell  back  into 
his  old  ways.  Miss  Birnie  Philip  was  now  almost  always  in  the  studio 
with  him.  In  April  he  showed  us  the  portrait  of  Mr.  Richard  A. 
Canfield,  whose  acquaintance  he  made  at  this  time,  unfortunately,  for 
he  introduced  Mr.  Canfield  to  “  the  Ladies,”  and  the  introduction 
resulted  in  the  loss  of  one  of  his  friends.  Miss  Birnie  Philip  was  sitting 
1902]  4°9 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

to  him,  he  was  working  on  the  portrait  of  Miss  Kinsella,  the  Venus,  and 
the  little  heads,  and  he  was  adding  to  the  series  of  pastels.  He  was 
bothered  about  the  show  of  his  prints  and  pastels  which  M.  Benedite 
wished  to  make  at  the  Luxembourg,  and  he  was  anxious  to  hand  over 
the  details  to  J.,  who  could  not  see  to  them  as  he  was  away  constantly 
this  year.  Whistler  looked  forward  to  the  show  because  of  the  official 
character  it  would  have,  though  after  recent  purchases  of  pictures  for 
the  Luxembourg  he  said,  “  You  know,  really,  I  told  Benedite,  if  this 
goes  on  I  am  afraid  I  must  take  my  ‘  Mummy  ’  from  his  Hotel.”  He 
was  worried  also  about  a  show  at  the  Caxton  Club  in  Chicago,  where 
it  was  proposed  to  reproduce  his  etchings  without  his  permission.  But 
when  the  Club  found  he  objected  the  matter  dropped. 

To  avoid  further  wandering,  for  which  he  was  no  longer  equal,  he 
took  a  house  in  Chelsea,  where  he  had  lived  almost  thirty  years  :  he  had 
been  absent  hardly  more  than  ten.  Mrs.  and  Miss  Birnie  Philip  went 
to  live  with  him.  The  house,  not  many  doors  west  of  old  Chelsea 
Church,  was  No.  74  Cheyne  Walk,  built  by  Mr.  C.  R.  Ashbee,  and  it 
stood  on  the  site  of  a  fish-shop  of  which  Whistler  had  made  a  lithograph 
There  was  a  spacious  studio  at  the  back  in  which,  in  his  words,  he  returned 
to  his  “  old  scheme  of  grey.”  Its  drawbacks  were  that  it  was  on  a 
lower  level  than  the  street,  reached  by  a  descent  of  two  or  three  steps 
from  the  entrance  hall,  and  that  the  rest  of  the  house  was  sacrificed 
to  it.  Two  flights  of  stairs  led  up  to  the  drawing-room  where,  in  glass 
cases  running  round  the  room,  he  placed  his  blue-and-white.  The 
dining-room  was  on  this  floor,  but  another  flight  of  stairs  had  to  be 
climbed  to  get  to  the  bedrooms  in  the  garrets.  Almost  all  the  windows 
opening  upon  the  river  were  placed  so  high,  and  filled  with  such  small 
panes,  that  little  could  be  seen  from  them  of  the  beauty  of  the  Thames 
and  its  banks  so  dear  to  Whistler.  The  street  door  was  of  beaten 
copper  and  the  house  was  full  of  decorative  touches,  which,  he  said, 
"  make  me  wonder  what  I  am  doing  here  anyhow—the  whole,  you 
know,  a  successful  example  of  the  disastrous  effect  of  art  upon  the 
British  middle  classes,”  Into  this  house  he  moved  in  April. 

He  reserved  his  energy  for  his  work  and  went  out  scarcely  at  all.  He 
did  not  dare  risk  the  dinner  given  in  May  by  London  artists  to  Rodin, 
who,  however,  breakfasted  with  him  a  day  or  two  after.  We  mention 
a  detail  that  shows  how  sensitive  Whistler  was  on  certain  subjects. 
410  [1902 


A  FRESHENING  BREEZE 


n  r  r 


In  Search  of  Health 

M.  Lanteri  and  Mr.  Tweed  came  with  Rodin,  and  this  is  Whistler’s 

account  to  us  later  on  the  same  day  : 

“  It  was  all  very  charming.  Rodin  distinguished  in  every  way— 
the  breakfast  very  elegant— but— well,  you  know,  you  will  understand. 
Before  they  came,  naturally,  I  put  my  work  out  of  sight,  canvases  up 
against  the  wall  with  their  backs  turned.  And  you  know,  never  once, 
not  even  after  breakfast,  did  Rodin  ask  to  see  anything,  not  that  I 
wanted  to  show  anything  to  Rodin,  I  needn’t  tell  you-but  m  a  man 
so  distinguished  it  seemed  a  want  of-well,  of  what  West  Point  would 
have  demanded  under  the  circumstances.” 

No  doubt  Rodin  thought,  from  the  careful  manner  m  which  work 
was  put  out  of  sight,  that  he  was  not  expected  to  refer  to  it.  His 

opinion  of  Whistler  we  know,  for  he  has  written  it  to  us  : 

“  Whistler  etait  un  peintre  dont  le  dessin  avait  heaucoup  de  profondeurs, 
et  celles-cifurent  preparees  par  de  bonnes  etudes,  car  il  a  du  etudier  assidu- 

ment. 

“  II  sentait  la  forme,  non  seulement  comme  lefont  les  bons  peintres  mats 
de  la  maniere  des  bons  sculpteurs.  II  avait  un  sentiment  extremement  fin,  qui 
a  fait  croire  d  quelques-uns  que  sa  base  ri  etait  pas  forte,  mats  elle  etait,  au 
contraire,  et  forte  et  sure. 

“  II  comprenait  admirablement  V atmosphere,  et  un  de  ses  tableaux  qui 
m’a  le  plus  vivement  impressionne,  ‘  La  Lamise  ( barrage )  a  Chelsea ,  est 
merveilleux  au  point  de  vue  de  la  profondeur  de  Ve  space.  Le  pay  sage  en 
somme  n'a  rien  ;  il  n'y  a  que  cette  grande  etendue  d’ atmosphere,  rendue  avec 

un  art  consomme. 

“  Uceuvre  de  Whistler  ne  perdra  jamais  par  le  temps  elle  gagnera  ; 
car  une  de  ses  forces  est  Verier  gie,  une  autre  la  delicatesse  ;  mats  la  principals 
est  Vetude  du  dessin.”* 

His  visits  to  us  were  on  Sundays,  when  he  came  for  noonday  break¬ 
fast,  alone  or  with  Miss  Birnie  Philip.  If  possible,  we  had  people  he 
liked  or  was  interested  in  to  meet  him.  One  Sunday  the  late  Mrs. 
Sarah  Whitman,  of  Boston,  and  Miss  Tuckerman  were  of  the  party, 
and  Whistler,  though  he  arrived  tired  and  listless,  recovered  his 
animation  before  breakfast  was  over,  and,  for  the  new  audience, 
described  again  the  house  in  which  he  was  so  astonished  to  find  himself, 
and  again  summed  up  the  Boer  campaign.  Once  he  braved  the 
*  See  Appendix  at  end  of  volume- 


1902] 


411 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

night  and  dined,  June  12— the  last  time  he  dined  at  our  table— and 
was  so  wonderful  we  forgot  how  ill  he  was.  We  asked  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Harrison  Morris  and  Professor  Sauter,  and  Mr.  Morris  brought 
a  message  from  General  Wheeler,  then  in  London  and  delighted  to 
have  news  of  Whistler,  whom  he  remembered  so  well  in  the  class 
above  him  at  West  Point.  To  be  remembered  by  a  distinguished 
West  Point  man  was  charming,  but  Whistler  would  not  hear  of 
General  Wheeler  being  in  the  class  below  him  ;  it  was  the  class  above  ; 
for  Whistler  did  not  choose  to  be  older  than  anybody.  We  have 
spoken  of  his  prejudices.  He  gave  that  evening  an  instance  of  one  of 
the  strongest.  Something  was  said  of  the  negro  ;  he  refused  to  see 
“  any  good  in  the  nigger,  he  did  not  like  the  nigger,”  and  that  was  the  end 
of  it.  But  Mr.  Morris  argued  that  it  depended  on  the  nigger  ;  some 
he  would  be  glad  to  invite  to  his  house  and  to  dinner.  “  Well,  you 
know,”  said  Whistler,  “  I  should  say  that  depends  not  on  the  nigger, 
but  on  the  season  of  the  year  !  ”  This  reminds  us  of  his  argument 
another  evening  with  Mrs.  T.  Fisher  Unwin.  But  the  negro  had 
never  had  a  chance,  Mrs.  Unwin  protested.  “  Never  had  a  chance  !  ” 
said  Whistler,  “  why,  there,  you  know,  there  they  all  were  starting  out 
equal— the  white  man,  the  yellow  man,  the  brown  man,  the  red  man, 
the  black  man— what  better  chance  could  the  black  man  have  ?  If  he 
got  left,  well,  it’s  because  he  couldn’t  keep  up  in  the  race.” 

On  these  last  visits  there  was  another  subject  he  could  not  keep 
long  out  of  his  thoughts  and  his  talk.  He  had  not  been  many  days  in 
his  new  house  before  building  was  begun  by  Mr.  Ashbee  on  a  vacant 
lot  next  door.  “  It  is  knock,  knock,  knock  all  day,”  Whistler  said,  and 
his  resentment  was  unbounded.  In  his  nervous  state  the  perpetual 
irritation,  the  feeling  that  advantage  had  been  taken  of  him  and  that 
he  had  not  been  informed  of  the  nuisance  beforehand,  put  him  into  a 
rage.  Mr.  Ashbee  has  written  us  that  Whistler  knew  a  building  was 
to  be  put  up.  Those  who  took  the  house  may  have  known,  but  Whistler 
told  us  he  did  not  until  the  work  began.  Excitement,  above  all,  the 
doctor  said,  must  be  avoided  as  it  was  bad  for  his  heart.  There  was 
no  mistaking  the  effect  of  this  endless  annoyance.  He  hoped  for  legal 
redress,  and  he  referred  the  matter  to  Mr.  Webb.  But  the  knocking 
continued.  On  June  17  E.  dined  with  him  at  Cheyne  Walk,  the  one 
other  guest  Mr.  Freer,  recently  arrived  from  Detroit,  and  it  seemed  to 
412  [1902 


In  Search  of  Health 

her  as  if  Whistler  was  fast  losing  the  good  done  by  the  winter’s  rest  and 
quiet.  Mrs.  and  Miss  Birnie  Philip  were  uneasy,  and  it  came  as  no 
surprise  to  hear  a  few  days  later  that  he  had  left  the  house  in  search  of 
repose  and  distraction  in  Holland,  with  Mr.  Freer  as  his  companion.  It 
was  too  late.  At  The  Hague,  where  he  stayed  in  the  Hotel  des  Indes, 
he  was  dangerously  ill,  at  death’s  door.  Mr.  Freer  remained  as  long  as 
he  could,  and  Miss  Birnie  Philip  and  Mrs.  Whibley  hurried  to  take  care 
of  him.  The  period  was  critical.  There  was  no  suggestion  of  it  in 
the  first  public  sign  he  gave  of  convalescence.  A  stupid  reporter 
telegraphed  from  The  Hague  that  the  trouble  with  Whistler  was  old 
age,  and  it  would  take  him  a  long  time  to  get  over  it.”  The  Morning 
Post  published  an  article  that  Whistler  thought  had  been  prepared  in 
anticipation  of  death,  which,  sparing  him  for  the  time,  spared  also  the 
old  wit.  He  wrote  to  beg  that  the  “  ready  wreath  and  quick  biography 
might  be  put  back  into  their  pigeon-hole  for  later  use  ”  ;  in  reference 
to  the  writer’s  description  of  him  he  apologised  for  “  continuing  to 
wear  my  own  hair  and  eyebrows  after  distinguished  confreres  and 
eminent  persons  have  long  ceased  the  habit  ”  ;  and  those  who  read  the 
letter  could  not  imagine  that,  a  few  days  previously,  his  letter-writing 
seemed  at  an  end.  It  contained  his  last  word  about  Swinburne,  and  in 
it  the  bitterness  with  which  he  wrote  Et  tu,  Brute!  in  A  he  Gentle  Arthad 
disappeared.  The  Morning  Post  stated  that  Swinburne’s  verses  inspired 
The  Little  White  Girl.  Whistler  explained  that  the  lines  “were  only 
written  in  my  studio  after  the  picture  was  painted.  And  the  writing 
of  them  was  a  rare  and  graceful  tribute  from  the  poet  to  the  painter  a 
noble  recognition  of  work  by  the  production  of  a  nobler  one.” 

After  Mr.  Freer  had  gone,  Mr.  Heinemann,  at  Whistler’s  urgent 
appeal,  joined  him  in  The  Hague,  a  fortunate  circumstance,  as  two 
charming  spinster  cousins,  the  Misses  Norman,  were  able  to  find  for 
the  patient  comforts  out  of  reach  of  a  stranger.  They  took  rooms  for 
him  near  the  Hotel  des  Indes,  suggested  a  nurse,  prepared  dishes  for 
him,  and  interested  The  Hague  artists  in  his  presence.  Mesdag, 
Israels,  and  Van  ’s  Gravesande  were  attentive.  Afterwards,  Van 
’s  Gravesande  wrote  : 

“  Je  Vai  heaucoup  dime.  Whistler,  malgre  tout  son  quarrelling  avec 
tout  le  monde ,  c'etait  un  ‘  tres  hon  garfon  ’  tout  a  fait  charmant  entre 
camarades.  J’ai  passe  quelques  jours  avec  lui,  il  y  dejd  une  vingtaine 
1902]  4*3 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

d'annees ,  d  Dordrecht  nousy  avons fait  des  croquis,  des  promenades  sur  Veau, 
etc.  etc.  J'en  garde  toujours  un  excellent  souvenir.  On  ne  pent  pas 
s' imaginer  un  compagnon  plus  gentil  que  lui,  enjoue ,  aimable,  sans  aucune 
pretention ,  enthousiaste ,  et  avec  cela  travailleur  comme  pas  un 

Whistler  enjoyed  the  society  of  his  doctor— “  the  Court  Doctor, 
quite  the  most  distinguished  in  Holland.”  Mr.  Clifford  Addams  came 
for  a  while  from  Dieppe,  and  in  September  E.  went  to  Holland. 
Whistler  was  so  much  better  that  he  made  the  short  journey  from  The 
Hague  to  Amsterdam,  where  she  was  staying,  to  ask  her  to  go  with  him 
to  the  Rijks  Museum  and  look  at  the  Effie  Deans,  which  he  had  not  seen 
in  the  gallery,  and  the  Rembrandts.  It  is  not  easy  for  her  to  forgive 
the  chance  that  took  her  away  from  the  hotel  before  the  telegram 
announcing  his  visit  was  delivered.  She  heard  of  him  afterwards  at 
Muller’s  book-shop,  where  he  had  been  in  search  of  old  paper,  for  which 
they  said  his  demand  in  Amsterdam  had  been  so  great  and  constant 
that  dealers  placed  a  fabulous  price  upon  it.  E.  the  next  day  went  to 
The  Hague,  where  she  found  him  in  rooms  that  in  the  last  hours  of 
packing  looked  bare  and  comfortless,  for  he  had  decided  to  start  at  once 
for  London.  He  had  promised  to  lunch  with  his  doctor,  so  that  she 
saw  only  enough  of  him  to  realise  how  frail  and  depressed  and  irritable 
illness  had  left  him.  His  sisters-in-law  told  her  that  the  doctor  said  he 
could  keep  well  only  by  the  greatest  care  and  constant  watchfulness, 
that  he  must  not  be  excited,  that  he  must  not  walk  up  many  stairs. 

Professor  Sauter  was  more  fortunate  than  E.,  and  we  have  his 
notes  of  Whistler  at  The  Hague  when,  with  the  first  cheerful  days  of 
his  recovery,  his  interest  in  life  seemed  to  revive  : 

“  Realising  the  difficulty  of  conveying  my  vivid  impressions,  I  have 
hesitated  for  so  long  to  give  you  an  account  of  our  experiences  with 
Whistler  during  the  last  days  of  August  and  the  beginning  of  Septem¬ 
ber  1902,  in  Holland,  soon  after  the  severe  illness  which  he  suffered. 

“  A  letter  which  I  received  in  the  beginning  of  August  was  sufficient 
proof  that  he  was  convalescent,  and  that  he  had  regained  his  interest 
in  many  affairs,  and  that  he  was  enjoying  The  Hague  and  the  Hotel  des 
Indes,  but  also  that  he  was  longing  for  the  society  of  friends  from  London. 
Towards  the  end  of  August  our  journey  to  Belgium  and  Holland 
brought  us  to  The  Hague,  and  of  course  our  first  visit  was  to  him. 

“  It  was  indeed  a  pleasure  to  hear  his  gay  voice,  after  he  had  received 
4T4  [1902 


In  Search  of  Health 

our  card,  calling  down  from  the  top  of  the  stairs,  ‘  Are  you  there  ?  just 
wait  a  bit — I  will  be  down  in  a  moment.’  In  a  few  minutes  his  thin, 
delicately  dressed  figure  appeared,  in  his  face  delight,  gay  as  a  schoolboy 
released  from  school  and  determined  to  have  an  outing. 

“  He  had  then  removed  to  apartments  a  few  doors  from  the  hotel, 
but  to  the  latter  he  invited  us  to  lunch.  With  intense  appreciation 
Whistler  spoke  of  the  attention  and  consideration  shown  to  him  by  the 
hotel  people  during  his  illness.  All  was  sun,  like  the  beautiful  sunny 
warm  August  day,  and  as  if  to  give  proof  of  his  statements  about  the 
cooking,  management,  and  everything  in  the  hotel,  he  ordered  lunch 
with  great  care. 

“  He  was  full  of  gaiety,  and  his  amusement  over  the  obituary  and 
his  own  reply  to  it  was  convincing  enough  that  neither  his  spirit  nor 
his  memory  had  suffered. 

“  After  lunch,  Whistler  insisted  on  taking  us  for  a  drive  to  show  us 
the  ‘  charming  surroundings  ’  of  The  Hague  and  the  Bosch.  We 
drove  also  to  Scheveningen.  He  was  full  of  admiration  and  love  for 
The  Hague. 

“  On  the  way  to  Scheveningen  the  real  state  of  his  health  became 
alarmingly  evident.  He  looked  very  ill  and  fell  asleep  in  the  carriage, 
but  to  my  suggestion  to  drive  home  and  have  a  rest  he  would  not 
listen. 

“  It  was  a  glorious  afternoon,  and  the  calm  sea  with  the  little  white 
breakers,  the  sand  with  hundreds  of  figures  moving  on  it,  and  children 
playing  in  gay  dresses,  made  a  wonderful  picture  to  enjoy  in  his 
company. 

“  About  5  p.m.  we  brought  him  to  his  rooms  after  arranging  to 
visit  the  Mauritshuis  together  next  day. 

“About  11.30  next  morning  we  met  in  the  gallery,  and  wandered 
from  room  to  room.  He  was  all  alive  and  bright  again,  and  there  he 
showed  particular  interest  in  and  affection  for  Rembrandt’s  Father,  and 
spoke  of  it  as  a  fine  example  of  the  mental  development  of  the  artist, 
which,  he  said,  should  be  continuous  from  work  to  work  up  to  the  end. 

“  I  mentioned  that  we  were  going  to  the  Vieux  Doelen  to  lunch  to 
meet  General  De  Wet  ;  his  interest  in  this  announcement  was  intense, 
and  I  had  to  promise  to  tell  him  all  about  it  in  the  afternoon. 

“  On  coming  to  the  two  portraits  by  Franz  Hals  he  examined  the 
1902]  415 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

work  with  undisguised  delight,  but  the  full  disclosure  of  feeling  towards 
the  Master  of  Haarlem  was  reserved  to  us  for  the  next  day. 

“  Qn  my  saying,  ‘  We  are  going  to  Haarlem  to-morrow,  Whistler 
promptly  replied,  1  Oh,  I  might  come  along  with  you. 

“  In  his  delicate  state  of  health  this  reply  was  startling  indeed,  and 
realising  the  responsibility  of  allowing  him  to  undertake  even  the  small 
journey  away  from  his  rooms  and  doctor,  I  replied,  But  we  are  leaving 
by  an  early  train.’  ‘  Oh,  then  I  might  follow  later  on,  he  finished. 

“  Thus  we  parted,  he  to  his  rooms,  we  to  the  Vieux  Doelen, 

44  About  4  p.m.  I  went  round  to  give  him  an  account  of  my  meeting 
with  De  Wet,  which  aroused  the  greatest  curiosity,  and  many  questions 

I  had  to  face.  ., 

“  When  I  asked  him  whether  he  had  seen  the  Generals,  he  said, 

‘  You  see,  I  just  drove  round  and  left  my  cards  on  their  Excellencies.’ 

“  But  still  the  journey  to  Haarlem  occupied  his  mind,  and  before 
I  left  him  it  came  out  :  ‘  Well,  you  are  going  to  Haarlem  early  to¬ 
morrow  ?  Perhaps  I  will  see  you  there.’ 

“  I  certainly  would  never  have  dreamt  for  a  moment  that  he  would 
carry  out  what  I  took  for  passing  fancy,  and  intense  was  my  astonishment 
when  next  day  about  noon  at  the  Haarlem  Gallery  I  saw  Whistler  in 
the  doorway,  smilingly  looking  towards  me,  saying,  ‘  Ah,  I  just  wanted 
to  see  what  you  are  doing.’ 

“  From  this  moment  until  we  took  the  train  at  the  Haarlem  Station 
back  to  The  Hague  a  nature  revealed  itself  in  its  force  and  subtlety, 
its  worship  for  the  real  and  its  humility  before  the  great,  combining 
the  experience  of  age  with  the  enthusiasm  of  youth. 

“  Hardly  could  I  get  Whistler  away  for  a  small  lunch. 

“  We  wandered  along  the  line  from  the  early  St.  Geotga  s  Shooting 
Guild  of  1 6i  6  down  to  the  old  women  of  1664. 

“  Certainly  no  collection  would  give  stronger  support  to  Whistler  s 
theory  that  a'master  grows  in  his  art,  from  picture  to  picture,  till  the 
end,  than  that  at  Haarlem. 

“  We  went  through  the  life  with  Hals  the  people  portrayed  on  the 
canvases,  his  relations  with,  and  attitude  towards,  his  sitters  ;  he  entered 
in  his  mind  into  the  studio  to  examine  the  canvas  before  the  picture 
was  started  and  the  sitters  arrived,  how  Hals  placed  the  men  in  the 
canvas  in  the  positions  appropriate  to  their  ranks,  how  he  divined  the 
4x6  £1902 


THE  SEA,  POURVILLE 
OIL 

In  tha  possession  of  A.  A.  Hannay,  Esq. 


(See page  363) 


In  Search  op  Health 

character,  from  the  responsible  colonel  down  to  the  youthful  dandy 
lieutenant,  and  how  he  revelled  in  the  colours  of  their  garments ! 

‘  ‘  As  time  went  on  Whistler’s  enthusiasm  increased,  and  even  the 
distance  between  the  railing  and  the  picture  was  too  great  for  this 
intimate  discourse.  All  of  a  sudden,  he  crept  under  the  railing  close 
up  to  the  picture,  but  lo  !  this  pleasure  could  not  last  for  long. 

“  The  attendant  arrived  and  gave  him  in  unmistakable  words  to 
understand  that  this  was  not  the  place  from  which  to  view  the  pictures. 

“  And  Whistler  crawled  obediently  back  from  his  position,  but  not 
discouraged,  saying,  ‘  Wait— we  will  stay  after  they  are  gone,’  pointing 
to  the  other  visitors. 

“  Matters  were  soon  arranged  with  the  courteous  little  chief 
attendant  down  in  the  hall,  who,  pointing  to  the  signature  in  the 
visitors’  book,  asked,  ‘Is  dat  de  groote  Schilder  ?  ’  (Is  that  the  great- 
painter  ?)  and  on  my  confirming  it,  pressed  his  hands  together,  bent  a 
little  on  one  side,  opened  his  eyes  and  mouth  wide,  and  exclaimed 
under  his  breath,  ‘  Ach  !  ’  He  was  a  rare  little  man. 

“  We  were  soon  free  from  fellow  visitors  and  watchful  attendants, 
and  no  more  restrictions  were  in  the  way  for  Whistler’s  outburst  of 
enthusiasm. 

“  We  were  indeed  alone  with  Franz  Hals. 

“  Now  nothing  could  keep  him  away  from  the  canvases ;  particularly 
the  groups  of  old  men  and  women  got  their  full  share  of  appreciation. 

“  He  went  under  the  railing  again,  turning  round  towards  me, 
saying,  ‘  Now,  do  get  me  a  chair.’  And  after  it  was  pushed  under  the 
railing,  he  went  on,  ‘  And  now ,  do  help  me  on  the  top  of  it.’  From 
that  moment  there  was  no  holding  him  back.  He  went  absolutely  into 
raptures  over  the  old  women,  admiring  everything ;  his  exclamation 
of  joy  came  out  now  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  now  in  the  most  tender, 
almost  caressing  whisper  :  ‘  Look  at  it— just  look ;  look  at  the  beautiful 
colour— the  flesh— look  at  the  white— that  black— look  how  those 
ribbons  are  put  in.  Oh,  what  a  swell  he  was— can  you  see  it  all  !— and  the 
character— how  he  realised  it.’  Moving  with  his  hand  so  near  the 
picture  as  if  he  wanted  to  caress  it  in  every  detail,  he  screamed  with 
joy  :  ‘  Oh,  I  must  touch  it— just  for  the  fun  of  it,’  and  he  moved 
tenderly  with  his  fingers  over  the  face  of  one  of  the  old  women. 

“There  was  the  real  Whistler— the  man,  the  artist,  the  painter- 
1902]  2D  4.17 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

there  was  no  '  Why  drag  in  Velasquez  f  ’  spirit  -but  the  spirit  of  a  youth 
full  of  ardour,  full  of  plans,  on  the  threshold  of  h.s  work,  oblivious  of 

the  achievements  of  a  lifetime. 

'  “  He  went  on  to  analyse  the  picture  m  its  detail. 

“  ‘  You  see,  she  is  a  grand  person  ’—pointing  to  the  centre  gur(- 
■  she  wears  a  fine  collar,  and  look  at  her  two  little  black  bows-she  is  the 
treasurer-she  is  the  secretary-she  keeps  the  records  -pointing 

each  in  turn  with  his  finger.  . .  i 

“  With  a  fierce  look  in  his  eye,  as  though  he  would  repu  se  an 
on  Hals,  and  in  contemptuous  tone,  he  burst  out,  They  say  e  was 
a  drunkard,  a  coarse  fellow ;  don’t  you  believe  it-they  are  the  coarse 
fellows.  Just  imagine  a  drunkard  doing  these  beautiful  things  . 

•'  <  Just  look  how  tenderly  this  mouth  is  put  in-you  must  see  the 
portrait  of  himself  and  his  wife  at  the  Rijks Museum.  He  was  a 
swagger  fellow.  He  was  a  cavalier-see  the  fine  clothes  he  we  . 
That  is  a  fine  portrait,  and  his  lady-she  is  charming  she  is  lovely 
In  time,  however,  the  excitement  proved  too  much  for  him  in  h 
weak  state,  and  it  was  high  time  to  take  him  away  into  the  fresh  air. 
He  appeared  exhausted,  and  I  feared  a  collapse  after  such  emotions 
"During  my  absence  in  looking  for  a  carriage  he  went  on  talking 
to  Mrs.  Sauter.  '  This  is  what  I  would  like  to  do,  of  course,  you  know, 
in  my  own  way ’-meaning  the  continual  progress  of  his  work  to  the 
last  /  ’  Oh,  I  would  have  done  anything  for  my  art.  It  was  a  great 
relief  to  have  him  safely  seated  in  the  carriage  with  us- 

"  Once  there  he  soon  regained  his  spirits,  and,  as  we  had  expected 
to  meet  Mrs.  Pennell  at  the  Gallery,  but  looked  in  vain  for  her,  we  now 
drove  from  hotel  to  hotel  in  search  of  her,  and  on  this  expedition  a  truly 
Whistlerian  incident  happened.  Stopping  before  one  of  the  ho  e  h 
requested  to  see  the  proprietor,  who  appeared  immediately  at  the  side 
of9, he  carriage,  a  tall,  solemn-looking  gentleman,  with  a  long  reddi.h 
beard,  bowing  courteously,  but  the  gentleman  could  give  no  information 
about  Mrs.  Pennell’s  arrival  at  his  hotel.  After  minute  inquiries  about 
Jhe  place,  Whistler  turned  to  him,  asking,  '  Monsieur,  what  hotel  w  ould 
you  recommend  in  Haarlem  if  you  would  recommend  any  .  to  wluc 
he  promptly  and  seriously  replied,  ‘  Monsieur,  if  I  would  recommend 
hotel  in  Haarlem  I  would  recommend  my  own.’  ‘  T han  ^ 
thank  you,’  responded  Whistler,  touching  his  hat,  bowing  slightly.  And 

418 


The  End 

we  drove  on  soon,  to  arrive  at  the  hotel  where  we  intended  to  take 
tea,  and  rest. 

“  Soon  we  were  happily  settled  on  our  return  journey,  in  a  special 
compartment,  which  he  was,  in  his  chivalrous  consideration  towards 
ladies,  most  anxious  to  reserve,  as  he  put  it,  1  to  make  IVIrs.  Sauter 
comfortable  — she  is  tired.’ 

W  ith  it,  a  day  full  of  emotions,  amusement  and  anxieties  came  to 
an  end— and,  as  it  proved  to  Whistler,  the  last  pilgrimage  to  Franz  Hals. 

“  It  needed  no  persuasion  to  keep  Whistler  at  home  after  so 
fatiguing  a  day. 

“  But  on  our  return  to  the  hotel  late  the  next  afternoon  we  were 
told  that  he  had  called  three  times,  and  finally  left  a  note  asking  us  to 
come  round  in  the  morning  and  also  to  bring  him  news  of  Mrs.  Pennell. 

“  Monday  was  a  fete  day  for  Holland— the  Queen’s  birthday,  and 
the  town  gay  with  flags  and  orange  streamers  and  happy  holiday  crowds. 

I  went  round  early  to  keep  him  company  and  bring  him  the  news 
he  wished  for. 

We  sat  at  his  window  overlooking  merry-go-rounds,  little  toy  and 
sweet  stalls,  and  throngs  of  little  children  in  their  loyal  smart  frocks. 

What  a  pretty  sight  !  If  I  only  had  my  water-colours  here  I 
could  do  a  nice  little  picture,’  he  remarked. 

‘  Dr.  Bisschop  had  kindly  arranged  to  take  us  and  Mr.  Bruckmann 
to  the  Gallery  of  Mesdag,  and  Whistler  accepted  an  invitation  to 
join  us. 

“  There  the  Canalettos  were  of  chief  interest  to  him.  Lunch  at  a 
caje,  another  visit  to  the  Mauritshuis,  and  tea  at  his  rooms  brought 
our  stay  to  an  end.” 


CHAPTER  XL VII:  THE  END.  THE  YEARS  NINETEEN 
HUNDRED  AND  TWO  AND  NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND 
THREE. 

Whistler  came  back  to  No.  74  Cheyne  Walk,  to  the  noise  of  building, 
to  the  bedroom  at  the  top  of  the  house— -to  the  conditions  against 
which  the  doctor’s  warning  was  emphatic.  When  E.  saw  him  about 
the  middle  of  September  on  her  return— J.  was  still  away— he  had 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

been  again  ill  and  was  confined  to  his  room.  On  her  next  visit, 
within  a  few  days,  he  was  in  bed,  but  he  had  moved  downstairs  to 
a  small  room  adjoining  the  studio,  intended,  no  doubt  for  a  mod 
dressing-room.  In  one  way  it  was  an  improvement  for  there  were 
no  stairs  and  his  studio  was  close  at  hand  whenever  he  had  streng 
for  work,  but  the  only  window  looked  upon  the  street,  and  the  clatter 
of  children  and  traffic  was  added  to  the  builders’  knocking. 

Except  in  this  house,  we  never  saw  him  after  his  return  from  he 
Hague.  At  times,  in  the  winter  and  spring,  he  was  able  to  go  out  m 
a  carriage,  but  the  three  flights  of  stairs  to  our  flat  rose  between  him 
and  us,  an  insurmountable  barrier.  Therefore  there  were  seldom  the 
old  long  intimate  talks,  for  he  was  not  often  alone  m  the  studio 
Miss  Birnie  Philip  was  usually  with  him,  sometimes  sitting  apart  vvit 
her  knitting,  and  only  rarely  drawn  into  ^  the  conversation 
Mrs.  Whibley  was  frequently  there,  and  before  the  Ladies 
were  reservations,  for  with  many  things  they  were  not  to  be  troubled. 
This  involved  a  restraint  in  himself  and  a  sensation  o  oppression  in 
his  visitors.  Then  there  was  a  coming  and  going  of  models,  visis 
from  his  doctors,  his  solicitor,  his  barber,  and  many  other  people  who 
helped  to  distract  him.  His  friends  were  devoted,  encouraged  by  him 
and  knowing  he  welcomed  anyone  from  the  world  without  ;  Mr  Lu  e 
lonides,  oldest  of  all,  Mrs.  Whistler,  Mr.  Walton,  who  lived  next  door, 
Professor  Sauter,  Mr.  Lavery,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Addams,  his  apprentices, 
Mr.  Arthur  Studd,  his  near  neighbour,  drifted  in  and  out  almost  dail}. 
He  was  bored  when  alone  and  unable  to  work,  though  he  had  of 
recent  years  developed  an  extraordinary  passion  for  reading.  But,  as :a 
matter  of  fact,  he  was  hardly  ever  lonely,  for  he  was  surrounded  as  e 
liked  in  his  studio,  and  yet  he  felt  his  condition  and  grew  restless,  so 
that  his  wish  to  rejoin  Mr.  Heinemann  in  housekeeping  was 
natural  to  most  of  us. 

Whistler  had  intervals  when  his  energy  returned,  and  he  worked 
and  hoped.  We  knew  on  seeing  him  when  he  was  not  so  well,  for  his 
costume  of  invalid  remained  original.  He  clung  to  a  fur-lined  overcoat 
worn  into  shabbiness.  In  his  younger  years  he  had  objected  *° 
dressing-gown  as  an  unmanly  concession  ;  apparently  he  had  not  out¬ 
grown  the  objection,  and  on  his  bad  days  this  shabby  worn-out  overcoat 
was  its  substitute.  Nor  did  the  studio  seem  the  most  comfortable 

420 


The  End 


place  for  a  man  so  ill  as  he  was.  It  was  bare,  with  little  furniture,  as 
his  studios  always  were,  and  he  had  not  used  it  enough  to  give  it  the 
air  of  a  workshop.  The  whole  house  showed  that  illness  was  reigning 
there.  The  hall  had  a  more  unfinished,  more  unsettled  look  than 
the  entrance  at  the  Rue  du  Bac,  and  it  was  sometimes  strewn  with  the 
trays  and  odds  and  ends  of  the  sickroom.  Papers  and  books  lay  on  the 
floor  of  the  drawing-room,  in  contrast  to  the  blue-and-white  in  the  cases. 
A  litter  of  things  at  times  covered  the  sideboard  in  the  dining-room. 
Everywhere  you  felt  the  cheerlessness  of  a  house  which  is  not  lived 
in.  When  we  saw  Whistler  in  his  big,  shabby  overcoat  shuffling  about 
the  huge  studio,  he  struck  us  as  so  old,  so  feeble  and  fragile  that  we 
could  imagine  no  sadder  or  more  tragic  figure.  It  was  the  more  tragic 
because  he  had  always  been  such  a  dandy,  a  word  he  would  have  been 
the  first  to  use  in  reference  to  himself.  We  recall  his  horror  once 
when  he  heard  a  story  that  represented  him  as  untidy  and  slovenly. 
“  I  !  ”  he  said,  “  I,  when  if  I  had  only  an  old  rag  to  cover  me  I  would 
wear  it  with  such  neatness  and  propriety  and  the  utmost  distinction  !  ” 
But  no  one  would  have  suspected  the  dandy  in  this  forlorn  little  old 
man,  wrapped  in  a  worn  overcoat,  hardly  able  to  walk.  On  his  bad 
days  there  was  not  much  walking  about,  and  he  lay  stretched  on  an 
easy  chair,  talking  little,  barely  listening,  and  dozing.  His  nights  were 
often  sleepless — he  had  lost  the  habit  of  sleep,  he  told  us,  and  as  the  day 
went  on  he  became  so  drowsy  that  it  seemed  as  if  nothing  could  rouse 
him  from  what  w^as  more  like  death  than  sleep.  Sometimes,  sitting  by 
the  table  where  tea  was  served,  he  w'ould  drop  his  forehead  on  the  edge 
of  the  table,  fall  asleep,  and  remain  motionless  for  an  hour  and  more.  A 
pretty  little  cat,  brown  and  gold  and  white,  that  lived  in  the  studio,  was 
often  curled  up  on  his  lap,  sleeping  too.  His  devotion  to  her  was 
something  to  remember,  and  we  have  seen  him  get  up,  when  probably 
he  would  not  have  stirred  for  any  human  being,  just  to  empty  the 
stale  milk  from  her  saucer  and  fill  it  up  with  fresh.  A  message  was 
sent  to  E.,  one  day,  to  announce  the  birth  of  her  first  kittens,  that  also 
made  the  studio  their  home  and  became  a  source  of  mild  distraction 
to  the  invalid. 

On  his  good  days  he  liked  to  play  dominoes  after  tea  and  he  cheated 
with  his  accustomed  tricks.  He  often  kept  J.  for  a  game  and  sometimes 
for  dinner  with  himself  and  Miss  Birnie  Philip  in  the  studio,  the  climb 
1902]  42i 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

to  the  dining-room  out  of  the  question.  There  were  times  when  he 
would  say  he  never  could  get  back  to  work  again,  but  others  when  he 
managed  to  work  with  not  only  the  old  vigour,  but  the  old  mastery.  He 
had  an  Irish  model,  Miss  Dorothy  Seton,  whose  red  hair  was  remarkably 
beautiful  and  whose  face  Whistler  thought  as  remarkable,  for  it  reminded 
him  of  Hogarth’s  Shrimp  Girl.  One  afternoon  J.  found  him  painting 
her,  her  red  hair  hanging  over  her  shoulders  and  an  apple  in  her  hand, 
the  picture  to  which  the  title  Daughter  of  Eve  was  eventually  given.  He 
was  walking  up  and  down  the  studio  in  delight,  looking  almost  strong, 
and  he  seized  J.  by  the  arm  in  the  old  fashion  and  walked  him  up  and 
down  too.  “  Well,  Joseph,  how  long  do  you  think  it  took  me  to  paint 
that,  now  ?  ”  and  not  for  weeks  had  he  shown  such  animation  as  when 
he  added,  “  It  was  done  in  a  couple  of  hours  this  very  morning.”  So 
far  as  we  know,  it  was  the  last  important  picture  he  painted,  and  it 
was,  as  J.  then  saw  it,  the  finest  thing  of  his  latest  period.  He  must 
have  painted  on  it  again,  for  at  the  Paris  Memorial  Exhibition  the 
bloom  of  its  beauty  had  faded.  Now  and  then  he  worked  on  a  portrait 
of  Miss  Birnie  Philip,  and  he  was  anxious  to  continue  the  portrait, 
started  a  year  or  so  before,  of  Mrs.  Heinemann,  which  needed  only  a 
few  more  sittings,  but,  to  the  world’s  loss,  these  could  not  be  arranged. 
He  saw  to  cleaning  the  Rosa  Carder ,  which  Mr.  Canfield,  who  was  back 
in  London  and  buying  pictures,  drawings,  and  prints  m  the  studio, 
bought  this  winter  for  two  thousand  pounds  from  Mr.  Graham 
Robertson.  The  story  of  this  purchase  was  the  only  amusing  thing 
we  ever  heard  Mr.  Canfield  say  :  “  Offered  the  young  fellow  a  thousand 
pounds — wouldn’t  hear  of  it.  Offered  him  two-jumped  at  it.  Why, 
the  darned  fool,  if  he  had  held  on  he  could  have  had  five  !  ”  Whistler 
telegraphed  for  us  to  come  and  look  at  Rosa  Carder  for  the  last  time  in 
England,  “  to  make  your  adieux  to  her  before  her  departure  for 
America.”  When  E.— J.  again  away— arrived  at  the  studio,  he  was 
better  than  since  his  return  from  The  Hague.  He  had  slept  eight 
hours  and  a  half  the  night  before,  and  he  rejoiced  in  not  being  sleepy. 
He  wiped  the  canvas  here  and  there  tenderly  with  a  silk  handkerchief 
and  kept  turning  round  to  ask  triumphantly,  “  Isn’t  she  beautiful  ? 

Mr.  Canfield  wa  t  sitting  again  for  his  portrait,  and  was  always 
welcome,  not  merely  as  a  sitter,  but  as  a  friend.  ^  He  seemed  to  have 
hypnotised  Whistler,  whom  we  heard  say  that  Canfield  was  the  only 


The  End 


man  who  had  never  made  a  mistake  in  the  studio.  We  could  not  help 
regretting  this  because  of  Canfield’s  notorious  reputation  in  New  York, 
and  the  unpleasant  things  said  of  Whistler’s  tolerance  of  the  man. 
Whistler  had  been  warned,  but  had  sacrificed  a  friendship  of  years  in 
his  indignation  at  “  a  breath  of  scandal  ”  against  anyone  whom  he  had 
introduced  to  “  the  Ladies.”  In  the  early  part  of  1903  we  received 
numerous  letters  and  telegrams  from  correspondents  of  American 
papers  in  London  re-echoing  the  question  in  the  New  York  dailies, 

“  Is  Whistler  painting  gambler  Canfield  ?  ”  The  fact  that  Canfield 
was  much  desired  at  home  made  the  New  York  papers  of  the  yellowest 
sort,  like  the  British  respectable  ones,  eager  for  details,  and  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  male  and  female  reporters  haunted  our  stairs.  They 
were  a  terrible  nuisance,  and  we  remember  in  particular  the  youth  who 
came  Vvith  the  usual  question,  “  Is  Whistler  painting  the  gambler  ?  ” 
and  who,  on  J.’s  reply  that  he  had  better  go  and  ask  the  painter,  said, 
“  But  they  tell  me  Whistler  would  either  horsewhip  me  or  kick  me  out 
of  the  house.  What  do  you  think  ?  ”  J.’s  answer  was  that  he  had 
better  go  and  see.  Whistler’s  condition  rendered  any  remark  which 
might  excite  him  dangerous,  and  everybody  hesitated  to  suggest  that 
Canfield  was  a  very  public  character  to  include  in  one’s  private  circle. 
Canfield’s  visits  did  not  cease,  and  the  fact  that  reconciled  us  to  his 
presence  was  that  it  resulted  in  one  of  Whistler’s  masterpieces.  The 
portrait,  His  Reverence,  ranked  then  with  The  Master  Smith  of  Lyme 
Regis.  But  this  was  our  estimate  when  we  saw  the  picture  in  Whistler’s 
studio.  Later  it  was  simply  ruined,  for  he  worked  on  it  too, 

Whistler  often  saw  dealers  who  came  for  his  prints.  On  two 
memorable  afternoons  Mr.  David  Kennedy  brought  the  large 
MacGeorge  Collection  of  Whistler’s  etchings,  which  he  had  purchased 
in  Glasgow,  for  Whistler  to  look  over,  and,  in  some  cases,  we  believe,  to 
sign  them.  He  went  through  as  many  as  he  could,  commenting  on 
their  state  and  their  preservation.  There  were  some  he  had  not  seen 
for  years,  and  Mr.  Ionides,  who  was  present  on  one  of  the  afternoons, 
seemed  to  know  more  about  them  than  Whistler.  He  soon  tired,  and 
was  not  to  be  revived  by  the  bottle  of  American  cocktails  which 
Mr.  Kennedy,  to  his  complete  approval,  also  brought.  Several  times 
we  found  him  going  through  the  accumulation  of  “  charming  things  ” 
from  the  studio  in  the  Rue  Notre-Dame-des-Champs.  Many  he  did 
1902-3]  423 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

not  think  so  charming  were,  we  understand,  destroyed  by  him.  So 
Miss  Birnie  Philip  maintains,  and  Mr.  Lavery  told  us  that  he  was 
calling  at  Cheyne  V/alk  one  afternoon  when  Whistler  said  he  had  been 
burning  things.  We  are  unable  to  state  if  a  reliable  list  was  made  of 
what  was  destroyed  and  what  was  kept.  Some  days  Whistler  read  us 
parts  of  his  earlier  correspondence — the  “  wonderful  letters  to  the 
Fine  Art  Society  during  the  Venetian  period.  And  once,  tired  though 
he  was,  he  insisted  on  reading  to  E.  just  once  more  his  letter  to  a  dealer, 
who  had  threatened  him  with  a  writ  and  whom  he  warned  of  the 
appearance  he  would  make,  “  with  one  hand  presenting  a  Sir  Joshua 
to  the  nation,  with  the  other  serving  a  writ  on  Whistler.  Well 
indeed  is  it  that  the  right  hand  knows  not  always  what  the  left  hand 
doeth.” 

In  November  he  sent  the  Little  Cardinal ,  which  had  been  at  the 
Salon  the  previous  summer,  to  the  Portrait  Painters  Exhibition. 
Several  critics  spoke  of  it  as  a  work  already  seen,  giving  the  impression, 
he  thought,  that  it  dated  back  many  years.  He  wrote  to  the  Standard 
to  contradict  this  impression,  Wedmore  again  having  blundered.  We 
called  to  see  him  on  the  afternoon  the  letter  was  written,  and  he  was  in 
great  glee.  He  said  : 

“  The  letter  is  one  of  my  best.  I  describe  Wedmore  as  Podsnap— 
an  inspiration,  isn’t  it  ?  With  the  discovery  of  Podsnap  in  art  criticism 
I  almost  feel  the  thump  of  Newton’s  apple  on  my  head,  and  this  I  have 
said.  Heinemann  promises  to  take  it  himself  to  the  editor  of  the 
Standard,  and  really  the  whole  thing  has  such  a  flavour  of  intrigue  that 
I  do  believe  it  has  made  me  well  again  !  ” 

He  planned  to  publish  the  criticism,  his  letter,  the  answers,  and  his 
final  comments  in  a  brown-covered  pamphlet,  a  scheme  begun  but, 
owing  to  his  feeble  health,  never  carried  out.  To  an  exhibition  of  old 
silver  at  the  Fine  Art  Society’s  he  lent  many  of  his  finest  pieces  and 
insisted  upon  their  being  shown  together  in  a  case  apart,  and  arranged 
according  to  his  instructions.  His  silver,  like  everything  belonging  to 
him,  was  a  proof  of  his  exquisite  taste  and  faultless  judgment.  It  was 
chosen,  not  for  historic  interest,  nor  for  rarity,  but  for  elegance  of  form 
and  simplicity  of  ornament.  The  other  collections  in  the  exhibition 
were  set  out  on  red  velvet  ;  his,  with  which  he  sent  some  of  his  blue-and- 
white  china,  was  placed  on  his  simple  white  table  linen  marked  with 
424  £1902-3 


The  End 


the  Butterfly.  After  we  had  been  to  the  exhibition,  he  asked  us  for 
every  detail ; 

“  How  did  the  white,  the  beautiful  napkins  look  ?  Didn’t  the 
slight  hint  of  blue  in  the  Japanese  stand  and  the  few  perfect  plates  tell  ? 
Didn’t  the  other  cases  seem  vulgar  in  comparison  ?  and  didn’t  the 
simplicity  of  my  silver,  evidently  for  use  and  cared  for,  make  the  rest 
look  like  museum  specimens  ?  ” 

He  examined  the  catalogue,  found  fault  with  it  because  the 
McNeill,  of  which  he  was  so  proud,  was  misspelt,  and  he  could  not 
understand  why  there  were  comparatively  fewer  entries  and  shorter 
descriptions  of  his  case  than  of  others  where  history  supplied  an 
elaborate  text. 

Notwithstanding  his  state,  he  forgot  none  of  the  old  courtesies. 
When,  in  November,  Sir  James  Guthrie  was  elected  to  the  Presidency 
of  the  Royal  Scottish  Academy,  he  telegraphed  his  congratulations,  and 
was  repaid  by  his  pleasure  when  Guthrie,  still  a  member  of  the  Council 
of  the  International,  telegraphed  back,  “  Warmest  thanks,  my  Presi¬ 
dent.”  On  New  Year’s  Day  (1903)  we  received  the  card  of  good 
wishes  it  was  his  custom  to  send  to  his  friends— a  visiting-card  with 
greetings  written  by  himself  and  signed  with  the  Butterfly.  Though 
he  could  not  go  to  the  meetings  of  the  International,  the  business  done 
at  each  had  to  be  immediately  reported,  and  when  the  annual  dinner 
was  given  he  considered  every  detail,  even  to  the  point  of  revising  the 
menu  and  sending  special  directions  for  the  salad.  He  had  great 
pleasure  in  the  degree  of  LL.D.  conferred  upon  him  by  Glasgow 
University,  at  the  suggestion  of  Sir  James  Guthrie  and  Professor 
Walter  Raleigh.  Dr.  D.  S.  MacColl,  at  their  request,  we  believe,  and 
after  consulting  J.,  approached  him  first  to  make  sure  that  the  honour 
would  be  accepted.  There  was  a  gleam  of  the  old  "  wickedness  ” 
when  Dr.  MacColl  called.  Whistler  appointed  a  Sunday,  asking  him 
to  lunch,  but  when  he  arrived  at  the  appointed  hour  he  was  sent 
upstairs  to  the  unused  drawing-room  and  supplied  with  Reynolds',  a 
Radical  sheet  adored  by  Whistler  because  of  its  wholesale  abuse  of  the 
“  Islander.”  And  Whistler  said  :  “  When  at  last  he  was  summoned  to 
the  studio,  I  told  him  it  was  the  paper  that  of  course  he  always  wanted 
to  read  at  the  Club,  but  was  ashamed  to  be  seen  with  !  And  all  through 
lunch  I  had  nothing  to  say  of  art—  I  talked  of  nothing  except  West  Point.” 
1902-3]  425 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

However,  when  MacColl  had  a  chance  to  explain  why  he  came, 
Whistler  expressed  his  pleasure  in  receiving  the  degree.  We  recall  his 
pains  with  his  letter  of  acknowledgment  after  the  official  announcement 
came  in  March,  his  concern  for  the  correct  word  and  the  well-turned 
phrase,  his  anxiety  that  there  should  be  no  mistake  in  the  Principal’s 
title  and  honorary  initials.  It  illustrates  his  care  for  detail  if  we  add 
that,  before  writing  the  address,  he  sent  a  note,  submitting  it,  next 
door  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walton,  who  were  Scotch,  he  said,  and  would 
know.  Another  pleasure  came  from  the  deference  shown  him  by  the 
Art  Department  of  the  Universal  Exposition  of  1904  at  St.  Louis.  Early 
in  1903  Professor  Halsey  C.  Ives,  Chief  of  the  Art  Department,  was  in 
London,  and  went  with  J.  to  call  on  Whistler  and  to  ask  him  to  serve  as 
Chairman  of  the  Committee,  of  which  Sargent,  Abbey,  and  J.  were 
members,  for  the  selection  of  work  by  American  artists  in  England.  The 
invitation  was  a  formal  recognition  of  Whistler’s  position,  and  he 
accepted,  though  he  did  not  live  to  occupy  the  post. 

These  months  were  not  without  worries.  News  of  books  about 
him,  in  preparation  or  recently  published,  annoyed  him,  as  he  had 
hoped  to  prevent  such  enterprises  by  giving  us  his  authority  for  the 
work  to  which  his  illness  was  a  serious  interruption.  We  called  one 
afternoon  when  he  was  worrying  himself  into  a  fever  over  the  latest 
attempt  of  which  he  had  heard,  and  was  unable  to  think  or  talk  of 
anything  except  the  insolence  of  people  who  undertook  to  write  about 
him  and  prepare  a  biography  without  consulting  him  and  his  wishes. 
As  he  talked  he  complained  of  pains  in  his  back,  and  his  restlessness 
was  distressing  to  see.  Another  afternoon,  he  was,  on  the  contrary, 
chuckling  over  Mr.  Elbert  Hubbard’s  Whistler  in  the  Little  Journeys 
series.  He  read  us  passages  : 

“  Really  with  this  book  I  can  be  amused— I  have  to  laugh.  I  don  t 
know  how  many  people  have  taken  my  name  in  print,  and,  you  know, 
usually  I  am  furious.  But  the  intimate  tone  of  this  is  something  quite 
new.  What  would  my  dear  Mummy— don’t  you  know,  as  you  see  her 
with  her  folded  hands  at  the  Luxembourg— have  said  to  this  story  of 
my  father’s  courtship  ?  And  our  stay  in  Russia— our  arrival  in  London 
—why,  the  account  of  my  mother  and  me  coming  to  Chelsea  an 
finding  lodgings  makes  you  almost  see  us-wanderers-bundles  at  the 
end  of  long  sticks  over  our  shoulders-arriving  footsore  and  weary  at 


The  End 


the  hour  of  sunset.  Amazing  ! — it  would  be  worth  while,  you  know,  to 
describe,  not  the  book,  but  the  effect  on  me  reading  it.” 

He  was  looking  desperately  ill  the  day  he  told  us  that  Montesquiou 
had  sold  his  portrait,  and  he  was  not  consoled  by  the  fact  that 
Mr.  Canfield  was  the  purchaser,  so  that  it  would  remain,  for  the  present 
at  least,  in  America.  He  was  the  more  hurt  because  Montesquiou  was 
a  friend  and,  “  as  you  know,  the  descendant  of  a  long  distinguished  line 
of  French  noblemen.” 

There  were  unnecessary  worries.  Mr.  Freer  sent  some  of  Whistler’s 
pictures  to  the  Winter  Exhibition  at  the  Pennsylvania  Academy  of 
Fine  Arts  in  Philadelphia.  The  jury  awarded  him  the  Academy’s 
Gold  Medal  of  Honour,  and,  to  assure  to  the  pictures  the  place  of 
greatest  distinction  where  they  would  look  best,  hung  them  before 
anything  was  installed,  building  up  a  screen  for  them  in  the  most 
important  room,  and  beginning  the  numbers  in  the  catalogue  with 
them.  For  some  reason  Mr.  Freer  did  not  approve  of  the  hanging  and 
seems  to  have  misunderstood  the  motives  for  it.  The  secretary, 
Mr.  Harrison  Morris,  could  make  no  change.  As  the  incident  was 
reported  to  Whistler  he  fancied  a  slight  in  the  arrangement  which  was 
meant  to  do  him  honour.  A  similar  incident  occurred  in  the  Spring 
Exhibition  of  the  Society  of  American  Artists  in  New  York,  where,  also, 
Mr.  Freer  objected  to  the  place  chosen  for  Whistler’s  work.  Whistler, 
as  a  result,  was  disturbed  by  the  idea  that  American  artists  were  treating 
him  with  indifference  or  contempt,  though  this  was  at  the  time  when 
their  acceptance  of  him  as  master  was  complete  and  their  eagerness  to 
proclaim  it  great.  Whistler  went  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  never 
wished  work  of  his  to  hang  again  in  the  Pennsylvania  Academy,  and  in 
regard  to  the  New  York  Exhibition  he  wrote  protesting  to  the  New 
York  papers.  The  agitation  and  excitement  did  him  no  good,  and  in 
his  weakness  such  small  worries  were  magnified  into  grave  troubles.  It 
is  the  more  to  be  regretted  because,  on  all  sides,  in  America  he  was 
honoured.  The  fault  was  Mr.  Freer’s  inability  to  understand  artistic 
matters.  Mr.  Will  H.  Low  and  other  artists  tried  as  well  as  they 
could  to  explain  things  to  Whistler,  but  Mr.  Freer  succeeded  in 
prejudicing  him  to  the  day  of  his  death  against  the  Pennsylvania 
Academy,  which  had  done  more  than  any  other  American  art  insti¬ 
tution  to  show  its  appreciation,  Americans  may  have  been  slow  in 
J903]  £27 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

acknowledging  him  officially,  but  that  was  because  they  knew  little  of 
his  work.  They  began  to  make  amends  long  before  his  death,  and 
their  eagerness  to  possess  his  work  may  be  contrasted  to  the  indifference 
in  England  or  in  Germany,  where  it  is  said  a  Whistler  was  bought  for 
Berlin  by  Dr.  Bode  for  two  thousand  pounds,  but  was  returned  to  the 
dealers  by  the  Emperor’s  command.  The  Sarasate  had  been  purchased 
for  the  Carnegie  Institute  in  Pittsburgh  in  November  1896,  the  first 
picture,  Mr.  Beattie,  the  Director,  tells  us,  bought  for  the  gallery,  and 
we  believe  the  first  Whistler  bought  for  any  American  gallery.  It  is 
prized  as  one  of  the  most  important  works  in  the  collection,  and,  though 
it  cost  the  Institute  five  thousand  dollars,  was  insured  for  thirty  thousand 
when  it  went  to  the  Rome  Exhibition  in  the  spring  of  1911.  We 
were  sorry  when  last  in  Pittsburgh  to  see  that  it  is  cracking.  The  T ellow 
Buskin  was  in  the  Wilstach  Collection,  Philadelphia,  and  The  Master 
Smith  and  The  Little  Rose  of  Lyme  Regis  in  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts  before  1903,  and  hardly  an  American  collector  of  note  was  not 
seeking  to  include  Whistlers  in  his  collection.  Now  the  Chicago 
Institute  has  Southampton  Water  and  the  Metropolitan  in  New  York 
has  the  Irving,  Connie  Gilchrist ,  and  several  important  studies.  The 
Fur  Jacket  is  at  Worcester,  and  in  the  Brooklyn  Institute  is  the  very 
unfinished  and  unsatisfactory  commencement  of  Florence  Leyland .  The 
Avery  collection  of  etchings  is  in  the  New  York  Public  Library,  and 
Charles  L.  Freer  has  donated  to  the  National  Gallery  at  Washington 
his  entire  collection,  the  largest  in  the  world  ;  the  best  possible 
refutation  to  the  nonsense  talked  about  want  of  appreciation  by  many 
self-styled  critics,  several  of  whom  have  been  imported  into  America 
and  England  since  Whistler’s  death. 

Whistler’s  health  varied  so  during  the  winter  that  we  were  often 
encouraged  to  hope.  But  with  the  spring  hope  lessened  with  every 
visit.  To  consult  our  notes  is  to  realise,  more  fully  than  at  the  time, 
how  surely  the  end  was  approaching.  The  afternoons  of  sleep  increased 
with  the  increasing  weakness  of  his  heart.  He  could  not  shake  off  the 
influenza  cold  which  was  dragging  him  down,  and  he  lived  in  constant 
fear  of  infection  from  others  if  anybody  even  sneezed  in  his  presence. 
"  J  can’t  risk  any  more  microbes— I’ve  about  enough  of  my  own.”  At 
times  his  cough  was  so  bad  that  he  was  afraid  to  talk,  and  he  would 
write  what  he  wanted  to  say  ;  it  was  his  tonsils,  he  explained.  1  here 


THE  FUR  JACKET 

ARRANGEMENT  IN  BLACK  AND  BROWN 


OIL 

(Picture  in  progress) 

From  a  photograph 
Len  by  Pickford  R.  Waller,  Esq. 


(Completed  picture) 

In  the  Worcester  Museum, 
Massachusetts 


{See  page  428) 


The  End 


were  visits  when,  from  the  moment  we  came  until  we. left,  he  worried, 
first  because  the  windows  were  open,  then  because  they  were  shut,  and 
his  impatience  if  the  doctor’s  visit  was  delayed  would  have  exhausted 
a  stronger  man.  J.  dined  with  him  on  May  1 4,  when  there  was  a 
rekindling  of  gaiety.  He  showed  the  portrait  of  Mr.  Canfield  ,  he 
-  played  dominoes  for  hours ;  at  dinner,  when  a  gooseberry  tart  was 
served,  he  apologised  for  the  “  Island.”  But  after  this  there  was  no 
more  gaiety  for  us  to  record.  A  few  days  later  J.  went  abroad  for  several 
weeks,  and  Mr.  Heinemann  sailed  for  America.  When  he  said  good-bye 
to  Whistler  he  was  entrusted  with  innumerable  commissions.  He  was 
to  find  out  the  truth  concerning  the  treatment  of  Whistler’s  pictures 
in  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  to  discover  who  his  new  unauthorised 
biographers  were,  what  artists  and  literary  people  were  saying,  what 
dealers  were  doing,  and,  when  he  returned,  then  they  would  keep 
house  together  again.”  This  was  the  moment  when  Mr.  Heinemann 
took  another  flat,  with  the  identical  arrangements  of  the  first  in 
Whitehall  Court,  so  that  they  could  go  back  to  the  old  life.  But  before 
he  returned  the  end  had  come. 

Fortunately,  while  Mr.  Heinemann  and  J.  were  away,  Mr.  r reer 
arrived  in  London  on  his  annual  visit,  and  he  was  free  to  devote  himsel 
to  Whistler,  whom  he  drove  out  whenever  Whistler  had  the  strength. 
But  this  was  not  for  long,  and  with  her  visit  to  him  on  July  I  E.  gave 
up  hope.  He  was  in  bed,  but  hearing  that  she  was  there,  he  sent  for 
her.  There  was  a  vague  look  in  his  eyes,  as  if  the  old  fires  were  burnt 
out.  He  seemed  in  a  stupor  and  spoke  only  twice  with  difficulty. 
Miss  Birnie  Philip  referred  to  his  want  of  appetite  and  the  turtle  soup 
ordered  by  the  doctor,  which  they  got  from  the  correct  place  m  the 
City.  “  Shocking  1  shocking  !  ”  Whistler  broke  in  slowly,  and  then 
after  a  minute  or  two,  “  You  know,  now  we  are  all  in  the  City  !  ” 
Miss  Birnie  Philip  wanted  to  give  tea  to  E.,  who,  seeing  how  ill  he  was, 
thought  it  wiser  not  to  stay,  and  after  some  ten  minutes  said  good-bye. 
“  No  wonder,”  Whistler  murmured,  “  you  go  from  a  house  where  they 
don’t  give  you  anything  to  eat.”  E.’s  next  visit  was  on  the  6th.  The 
doctor  had  been  with  him,  he  was  up,  dressed,  and  had  been  out  for  a 
drive.  But  he  looked,  worse,  his  eyes  vaguer,  giving  the  impression  of 
a  man  in  a  stupor.  He  said  not  a  word  until  she  was  leaving,  and  then 
his  one  remark  was,  “  You  ate  looking  very  nice. 

1903]  429 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

Reports  of  his  feebleness  were  brought  to  us  b y  many,  among  others 
by  M.  Duret.  In  July  he  came  to  London,  and  was  deeply  moved  by 
the  condition  in  which  he  found  Whistler,  who,  he  thought,  wTanted  to 
say  things  when  alone  in  the  studio  with  him,  but  the  day  of  his  first 
visit  could  not  utter  a  word.  And  after  a  second  visit,  after  an  hour 
with  Whistler,  who  again  struggled  to  talk  and  could  not,  Duret  felt  it 
was  the  last  time  he  would  see  Whistler.  It  was,  and  in  his  sorrow  he 
could  but  recall  the  days  together  gone  for  ever. 

On  the  14th  E.  called  again,  and  again  Whistler  was  dressed  and  in 
the  studio,  and  there  were  pictures  on  the  easels.  He  seemed  better, 
though  his  face  was  sunken  and  in  his  eyes  was  that  terrible  vagueness. 
Now  he  talked,  and  a  touch  of  gallantry  was  in  his  greeting,  “  I  wish  I 
felt  as  well  as  you  look.”  He  asked  about  Henley,  the  news  of  whose 
death  had  come  a  day  or  two  before.  He  watched  the  little  mother 
cat  as  she  ran  about  the  studio.  There  was  a  return  of  vigour  in  his 
voice  when  Miss  Birnie  Philip  brought  him  a  cup  of  chicken  broth  and 
he  cried,  s‘  Take  the  damned  thing  away,  and  his  old  charm  was  in 
the  apology  that  followed,  but,  he  said,  if  he  ate  every  half-hour  or  so 
as  the  doctor  wanted,  how  could  he  be  expected  to  have  an  appetite  for 
dinner  ?  He  dozed  a  little,  but  woke  up  quickly  with  a  show  of  interest 
in  everything,  and  when,  on  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Lavery,  E.  got  up  to  go, 
fearing  that  more  than  one  visitor  would  tire  him,  he  asked,  But  why 
do  you  go  so  soon  ?  ”  and  these  were  the  last  words  he  ever  spoke  to  her. 

When  J.  returned  to  town,  on  Friday  the  17th,  he  immediately 
started  for  Chelsea,  but  met  Mr.  T.  R.  Way,  who  had  been  lunching 
with  Mr.  Freer  at  the  Carlton,  and  from  whom  he  learnt  that  Whistler 
and  Mr.  Freer  were  to  go  for  a  drive. 

There  was  no  drive  that  afternoon— no  drive  ever  again.  The 
illness  had  been  long,  the  end  was  swift.  Whistler  was  dying  before 
Mr.  Freer  reached  the  house.  On  Thursday  he  had  seemed  much 
better,  had  gone  for  a  drive,  and  was  so  well  at  dinner  that  Mrs.  Whibley 
told  him  laughingly  he  would  soon  again  be  dressing  to  dine.  But 
after  lunch  on  Friday  she  was  called  hurriedly  to  the  studio,  where 
Miss  Birnie  Philip  was  already.  They  realised  the  seriousness  of  the 
attack.  The  doctor  was  sent  for,  but  the  need  for  him  had  passed. 

The  papers  during  the  next  few  days  showed  how  Whistler’s  fame 
had  grown.  We  saw  another  side  which  the  public  could  not  see  the 


The  End 


affection  in  which  he  was  held  by  those  who  knew  him  intimately.  Many 
came  to  us  at  once  :  M.  Duret,  who  had  lost  the  last  of  his  old 
comrades— first  Manet,  then  Zola,  and  now  Whistler,  with  whom  the 
best  hours  of  his  life  were  spent  ;  Mr.  Kennedy,  whose  business  relations 
with  Whistler  had  developed  into  warm  friendship ;  Mr.  Lavery, 
Professor  Sauter,  Mr.  Harry  Wilson,  their  one  thought  to  express  their 
love  and  reverence  for  their  President.  Other  artists  followed,  others 
wrote,  and  our  sorrow  for  the  friend  was  tempered  by  knowing  how 
deep  and  widespread  was  the  regret  for  the  master.  Mr.  Heinemann 
returned  from  New  York  too  late  to  see  Whistler  again,  and  both  he 
and  J.  were  spared  the  sad  memory  of  Whistler  with  the  life  faded 
from  his  face,  the  light  gone  from  his  eyes. 

The  funeral  took  place  on  Wednesday,  July  22.  The  service  wras 
held  in  old  Chelsea  Church,  to  which  he  had  so  often  walked  with  his 
mother  from  Lindsey  Row.  There  was  a  comparatively  small  attend¬ 
ance.  The  members  of  his  own  family  who  came  were  his  sister-in-law, 
Mrs.  William  Whistler,  and  his  nieces,  Mrs.  Thynne  and  Mrs.  Reveillon. 
The  Society  with  which,  in  his  last  years,  he  had  identified  his  interests 
was  represented  by  the  Council  :  Professor  Sauter,  Mr.  Harry  Wilson, 
Mr.  Francis  Howard,  Mr.  Ludovici,  Mr.  Stirling  Lee,  Mr.  Neven 
du  Mont,  Mr.  E.  A.  Walton,  and  J.  Here  and  there  were  friends, 
Mr.  Alan  S.  Cole,  Mr.  Heinemann,  Mrs.  Edwin  A.  Abbey,  Dr.  Chalmers 
Mitchell,  Mr.  W.  C.  Alexander,  Mr.  Clifford  Addams,  Mr.  Jonathan 
Sturgis  ;  and  here  and  there  Academicians,  Sir  Lawrence  Alma-Tadema 
and  Sir  Alfred  East.  But  Whistler,  who  valued  official  recognition, 
was  given  none.  No  one  from  the  American  Embassy  paid  the  last 
tribute  of  respect  to  the  most  distinguished  American  citizen  who  ever 
lived  in  London.  No  one  from,  the  French  Embassy  attended  the 
funeral  of  the  Officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  No  one  from  the 
German  Embassy  joined  in  the  last  rites  of  the  member  of  two  German 
Royal  Academies  and  the  Knight  of  the  Order  of  St.  Michael  of 
Bavaria.  Nor  was  anyone  present  from  the  Italian  Embassy,  though 
Whistler  was  Commander  of  the  Crown  of  Italy  and  member  of  the 
Academy  of  St.  Luke.  The  only  body  officially  represented  besides 
the  International  was  the  Royal  Scottish  Academy.  The  police  came 
to  restrain  the  crowd,  but  there  was  no  crowd. 

The  coffin  was  carried  the  short  distance  from  the  house  to  the 
1903]  431 


James  McNeill  Whistler 

church  along  the  shores  of  the  river  he  made  his  own.  It  was  covered 
with  a  purple  pall,  upon  which  lay  a  wreath  of  gold  laurel  leaves  sent 
by  his  Society.  The  pall-bearers  were  M.  Theodore  Duret,  Sir  James 
Guthrie,  Mr.  John  Lavery,  Mr.  Edwin  A.  Abbey,  Mr.  George  Vanderbilt 
and  Mr.  Charles  L.  Freer.  The  little  funeral  procession  that  walked  with 
the  coffin  from  the  house  to  the  church  included  Miss  Bir me  Philip, 
Mrs.  Charles  Whibley,  their  sisters,  brother,  and  nephews,  Mr.  William 
Webb,  and  Mr.  Arthur  Studd,  but  none  of  his  own  family,  none 
of  the  group  with  whom  he  had  been  most  intimate  in  his  last  yea*s- 
After  the  burial  service  was  read,  the  procession  re-formed,  and  the 
family,  the  Council  of  the  International,  and  a  few  friends  went  to 
the  graveyard  at  Chiswick.  It  was  a  grey,  stormy  summer  day,  and 
as  the  clergyman  said  the  last  prayers,  and  the  coffin  was  lowere  , 
the  thick  London  atmosphere  wrapped  the  green  enclosure  in  the 
magic  and  mystery  that  Whistler  was  the  first  to  see  and  to  reveal 
The  grave  was  made  by  the  side  of  his  wife  under  a  wall  covered  with 
clematis.  A  low  railing,  like  the  trellis  in  the  garden  at  the  ue 
du  Bac,  with  flowers  growing  over  it,  shuts  in  the  little  unmarked 
plot  of  ground  where  Whistler,  the  greatest  artist,  and  most  striking 
personality  of  the  nineteenth  century,  lies  at  rest  m  a  remote  corner 
of  the  London  he  loved,  not  far  from  the  house,  and  nearer  the  grave, 
of  Hogarth,  who  had  been  to  him  the  greatest  English  master  from 
the  days  of  his  boyhood  in  St.  Petersburg. 


THE  END  OF  THE  LIFE  OF  JAMES  ABBOTT  McNEILL 
whtqtt  FR  HIS  NAME  AND  HIS  FAME  WILL  LIVE  FOR 
EVER  JOSEPH  PENNEI  L.  ELIZABETH  ROBINS  PENNELL 

Printed  by  Ballantyne  and  Co.  Ltd. 

August  24,  1911. 


APPENDIX 


Page  289,  line  7.—“  When  you  ask  me  to  say  something  about  the 
illustrious  and  lamented  Whistler,  you  do  not,  of  course,  want  me  to 
add  my  contribution  to  the  rich  pyramid  of  admiration  and  praise 
that  has  already  been  raised  to  his  glory. 

“  What  you  must,  of  course,  be  thinking  of,  is  anything  special  and 
picturesque  that  I  may  be  able  to  add  to  your  biography  of  the  great 
artist. 

“  Well  as  I  knew  and  loved  his  works,  I  had  but  a  passing  glimpse 
of  his  person. 

“  Here  are  two  interesting  traits  connected  with  it. 

“  Some  few  years  ago,  he  was  very  much  disturbed  about  a  piracy 
committed  in  Belgium  by  a  foreigner  living  at  Antwerp,  of  his  curious 
book,  The  Gentle  Art  oj  Making  Enemies .  One  day  he  appeared  in  my 
study,  and  said  to  me  with  a  sarcastic  smile  :  ‘  I  should  like  you  to  be 
my  counsel  in  this  little  affair,  because  I  have  been  told  that  you,  like 
myself,  practise  the  gentle  art  of  making  enemies.’ 

The  case  was  won  at  Antwerp  with  the  collaboration  of  my 
confrere,  M.  Maeterlinck,  a  relative  of  the  poet  who  is  such  an  honour 
to  our  country.  The  victory  was  celebrated  at  his  house.  When 
Whistler,  the  hero  of  the  festivity,  arrived  at  this  hospitable  abode,  he 
was  a  long  time  in  the  ante-room.  The  maid  who  had  let  him  in  came, 
very  much  amazed,  to  the  drawing-room  where  we  were  awaiting  him, 
and  said  in  Flemish  :  ‘  Madame,  there  is  an  actor  in  the  ante-room  ;  he 
is  doing  his  hair  before  the  looking-glass,  he  is  putting  on  pomade, 
painting  and  powdering  his  face.’  After  a  long  interval,  Whistler 
appeared,  courteous,  correct,  waxed  and  anointed,  resplendent  as  the 
butterfly  which  his  name  recalls,  and  with  which  he  signed  some  of  the 
notes  he  used  to  write  to  his  counsel. 

“  This  is  all  I  can  offer  you. 

“  I  have  asked  M.  Maeterlinck  for  any  documents  connected  with 


Appendix 

this  episode  he  might  have.  All  his  researches  have  been  in  vain 
Although  so  many  insignificant  papers  have  been  preserved,  Fate  th 
perverse  has  allowed  these  precious  fragments  to  disappear. 

Pane  ill  line  14.-"  Whistler  was  a  painter  whose  drawing  had 
great  depth,’ and  this  was  prepared  for  by  good  studies,  for  he  trmst 

haV'ffisdffelinfforTom  was  not  only  that  of  a  good  painter,  it  was 
that  of  a  sculptor.  He  had  an  extraordinary  delicacy  of  sentimen  , 
which  made  some  people  think  that  his  basis  was  not  very  strong, 

whereas  it  was,  on  the  contrary,  both  strong  and  farm. 

'  He  unde  stood  atmosphere  most  admirably,  and  one  of  his  pictures 
which  made  a  very  deep  impression  on  me,  Ue  Uanes  a,  Ck 'Uea  - 
marvel  of  depth  and  space.  The  landscape  in  itself  is  nothing  ,  there 
is  merely  thin  great  extent  of  atmosphere,  rendered  with  consummate 

Whistler’s  art  will  lose  nothing  by  the  lapse  of  time  ;  it  will  gain  ; 
for  one  of  its  qualities  is  energy,  another  is  delicacy  ;  but  the  greatest 
of  all  is  its  mastery  of  drawing.” 


434 


INDEX 


Abbey,  E.  A.,  138,  305,  317,  426,  431, 
432 

Abbey,  Mrs.,  138,  431 
Abbot,  Gen.  H.  L.,  24 
Abbott,  Jas.,  1 

Academie  Carmen,  35,  373-88 
Academie  Royale  des  Beaux-Arts,  404 
Adam  and  Eve,  Old  Chelsea,  155,  196 
Addams,  Clifford,  77,  356,  404,  414, 
420,  431 

Addams,  Mrs.  (Miss  Inez  Bate),  113, 
355.  356,  363.  374. 380-82,  420 
“  Albemarle,  The,”  276,  307 
Alderney  Street,  272 

Alexander,  Cicely  H.  (Mrs.  Spring- 
Rice),  98, 119-23 

Portrait  of  ( Grey  and  Green),  52, 
89,  105,  120-23,  130,  145,  207, 
296,  37i 

Alexander,  John  W.,  230,  317 
Alexander,  May,  Portrait  of,  123 
Alexander,  W.  C.,  120,  146,  156,  158, 
238,  298,  431 

Alexander,  Mrs.  W.  C.,  12 1,  123 
Alexandre,  Arsene,  31 1,  317 
Allen,  Sir  William,  8-9 
Allingham,  W.,  119,  399-400 
Alma-Tadema,  Sir  Lawrence,  55,  58, 
152,153,249,251,431 
Alone  with  theTide.  See  Coast  of  Brittany 
Aman-Jean,  E.,  316 
Americaine,  L’,  157-58,  206 
American  Art  Association,  Paris,  3 1 7 
American  Artists,  Society  of,  208 
Amsterdam  from  the  Tolhuis,  74 
Amsterdam,  Rijks  Museum,  277,  414, 
418 

Andalouse,  L’  ( see  Mrs.  C.  Whibley), 
322,  393 

Angelo,  Michael,  359,  360,  399-400 
the  Sistine  Chapel,  183 


A  nnabel  Lee,  277 
Ararat,  Mount,  183,  186 
Armitage,  Mrs.,  373 
Armstrong,  Thomas,  35-37,  47,  48,  55, 
60-61,  167,  169 
Armstrong,  Sir  W.,  253,  398 
‘‘Art  and  Art  Critics,”  Whistler  v. 

Ruskin,  26,  179,  184,  243 
Art  Institute,  Chicago,  279 
“  Art  Journal,”  102,  x  16,  233,  238,  253, 
322 

A  rt,  L’ ,  179 
“  A  rt  Notes,”  1 56 
“  Artiste,  L’ ,”  93 
Ashbee,  C.  R.,  410,  412 
Astor,  W.  W.,  283 
Astruc,  Z.,  49 

Portrait  of,  58 

“  Atheneeum,  The,”  59,  66,  68,  69,  90, 
92,  102,  127,  143,  153,  155,  158,  285 
Aubert,  M.,  37 

Augustine  (Mme.  Bertin),  339,  405 
Autotype  Company,  The,  1 56 
Avery,  S.  P.,  99,  100,  208,  428 
Axenfeld,  M.,  49 
Portrait  of,  65 

Bacher,  Otto  H.,  1 17,  188-89,  IQO 
192, 195,  197,  198,  199,  200,  204,  230 
Balcony,  By  the,  328 

Balcony,  The  ( Flesh-Colour  and  Green), 
86,  109,  273,  278,  328 
Balestier,  Wolcott,  284 
Balleroy,  De,  91 
Baltimore,  1,  26,  27 
Bankes,  Eldon,  344 
Barbizon,  excursion  to,  314 
Barnett,  Canon  and  Mrs.,  331 
“  Baronet  and  the  Butterfly,  The,”  350, 
35L  37i 

Barr,  Miss,  Portrait  of,  330 


435 


Index 


Barr,  Robert,  330 
Barrie,  ].  M.,  283 
Barrington,  Mrs.,  35 
Barthe,  M.,  77-78.  128-29 
Bastien-Lepage,  J.,  235,  367 
Battersea  (Symphony),  101,  373 
Battersea  Bridge,  Old,  99,  185,  200 

(Blue  and  Silver,  later  Blue  and 
Gold),  90,  hi,  112,  IS2-  i64- 
171-75,  216,  256 

(Brown  and  Silver),  92,  298 
Baudelaire,  46,  70,  84,  91,  101,  215, 
253 

Bavarian  Royal  Academy,  276 
Bayliss,  Sir  Wyke,  249,  265-68 
Beardsley,  A.,  187,  306,  308,  310,  341, 
348,  369 

Beatty,  J.  W.,  428 
Beck,  J.  W„  304 
Becquet,  M.,  37,  49 >  3^3 
Portrait  of,  72 
Beggars,  The,  197,  198,  274 
Belfont,  M„  3 °7-  322 
Benedite,  L.,  48,  86,  410 
Benham,  Capt,,  29,  3°.  32~33 
Benham,  Major  H.  H.,  32 
Berners  Street  Gallery,  69,  109 
Bernhardt,  Sarah,  137,  187 
Beurdeley,  Maitre,  326,  349 
Bibi  Lalouette,  38,  49,  5° 

Bierstadt,  A.,  99 
Bigharn,  Mr.  Justice,  '344— 45 
Billingsgate,  106,  185,  272 
Blaas,  E.  de,  190 

Black  Lion  Wharf,  60,  65,  68,  196  97. 
329 

Blackburn,  Vernon,  283 

Blaikie,  W.  B.,  399 
Blanche,  J.  E.,  1 4 5 
Blind,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  84 
Blomfield,  K.  E  ,  284 
Blott,  Mr.,  162 

Blue  and  Gold  (Westminster),  1 S2,  169 
Blue  Girl,  21 1,  216.  See  Elinor 

I, eland  ;  also  Waller 
Blue  Wave,  The,  67-68,  298,  302 
Blum,  R.,  19°.  l92 
Bode,  Dr.,  428 

Boehm,  Sir  J.  E.,  152,  187 

Boisbaudran,  Lecocq  de,  34,  46,  113 
Boldini,  J.,  3*6»  34$,  348,  349 
Bonnat,  L.  J.  F.,  250,  387 

436 


Bonvin,  F.  S.,  48,  53>  58 
“  Book  of  the  Artists,”  99 
“  Book  of  Scoundrels,”  34° 

Boot,  Miss,  63 
Booth,  Mrs.,  76 

Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  428 
Boucher’s  Diana,  copy  of,  51 
Boudin,  E.,  334 

Boughton,  G.  H.,  39,  56,  59-  no-11. 

136,  148, 1 54 
Bouguereau,  A.  W.,  250 
Boussod  Valadon,  Messrs.,  296 
Bourgeois,  L.,  297 
Bowen,  Lord  Justice,  167-80 
Boxall,  Sir  Wm.,  17,  18,  no,  334 
Bracquemond,  F.,  48,  73,  84,  91,  2x5 
Breck,  Adjt.-Gen.,  30 
Bridge,  The,  197,  198 
“  British  Architect,  The,  203 
British  Artists’  Exhibition,  256,  259- 

61  . 

British  Artists,  The  Royal  Society  of, 
237, 244, 248-68,  270,  366 
British  Museum,  74,  107,  169 
“  Broad  Bridge,  The,”  156 
Lonson,  H.,  189 
Bronson,  Mrs.,  190,  I93”94 
Bronson,  Miss  E.  (Countess  Rucellai), 
188 

Brooklyn  Museum,  124,  428 
Brown,  Ernest  G,,  185,  202,  355 
Brown,  Prof.  Fred.,  340 
Brown,  Ford  Madox,  81,  83,  84,  no, 
146, 201 , 202 
Brownell,  W.  C.,  185 
Browning,  Robert,  190,  194 
Bruckmann,  W.  L.,  419 
Brunei,  76 

Buller,  Sir  Redvers,  395 
Buloff,  12 

Bunney,  R.,  19°.  l92 
Burckhardt,  Count,  71 
Burgomaster  Six,  The,  197 
Burlington  Fine  Arts  Club,  101 
Burne-Jones,  Sir  B.,  80,  104,  107,  146, 
1 51,  152,  153,  168,  174-75.  17^~79> 
202,  225, 250,  329 
Burne-Jones,  Lady,  167,  174 
Burr,  John,  258 
Burton,  Sir  R.,  400 
Burton,  Lady,  400 
Burty,  P.,  100,  102 


Index 


Bussy,  Simon,  387 
Butler,  Mr.,  191 

Butterfly,  The,  88-90,  120,  126,  217, 
218, 258, 262, 291,  399 
Company  of  the,  351—53,  394 
Byng,  Rev.  Mr.,  269 

Calmour,  Alfred,  83 
Cambridge  University  Art  Society,  244 
Campbell,  Lady  Archibald,  137,  160- 
61, 212-14,  231-32 
Portrait  of.  See  Yellow  Buskin 
Campbell,  Lady  Colin,  1 37 

Portrait  of  ( Ivory  and  White),  259 
Canaletto,  102,  187,  190,  230,  231,  336, 
337 

Canfield,  R.  A.,  164,  201,  422-23,  427, 
429 

Portrait  of,  409 
Caravaggio,  337 
Carlisle,  Earl  of,  82 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  89,  119-20,  122,  169, 
239. 296, 399-400 
Portrait  of  ( Black  and  Grey),  52, 
118-20,  152,  162-63,  173,  184, 
219-20,  279-80 
Carmen,  358 

Carmen  Rossi,  Madame,  309,  327,  354 

Carnegie  Institute,  Pittsburgh,  428 

Carr,  J.  Comyns,  238 

Carte,  Mrs.  D’Oyly,  1 59,  240,  241 

Cassatt,  Mrs.,  Portrait  of,  255 

Cauldwell,  J.  E.,  392-93 

Cauty,  H.  H„  249 

Cazin,  C.,  73 

Cellini,  184,  294 

Cennino,  184,  375 

Centenary  Exhibition  of  Lithography, 

327 

“  Century  Magazine,”  22,  31,  221 
Champfleury,  91 
Chantrey  Collection,  1 1 1 
Chapman,  Alfred,  109 
Chapman,  Miss  Emily,  16,  47,  67,  80, 
97-98 

Chase,  William  M.,  20,  21,  233-37,  387 
Portrait  of,  234 

Chelsea  in  Ice  ( Harmony  in  Grey),  260 
Chelsea  Rags,  276,  371 
Chelsea  Reach  ( Harmony  in  Grey),  143 
Cheyne  Walk,  houses  in,  75,  97-98, 
280,  281,  410,  419 


Chicago  Exhibition,  304-303 
Childs,  F.  L.  T„  25 
Christie,  J.  E.,  77-78 
Church,  F.  E.,  99 
Claghorn  Collection,  the,  208 
Claretie,  Jules,  93 
Clarke,  Sir  Edward,  344-50 
Claude,  102,  336,  337 
Clausen,  George,  267,  286 
Clemenceau,  Georges,  296 
Coast  of  Brittany,  The,  66,  67-68,  219 
Coast  Survey,  Nos.  I.  and  II.,  31-32, 
50,  61 

Cole,  Alan  S.,  17,  104-105,  134-37, 
143,  144,  146-49,  1 51,  164,  185,  202- 
203,  206,  209-10,  217,  227,  238,  254, 
270,  281,  350,  355, 431 
Cole,  Mrs.  A.  S.,  137,  270,  355 
Cole,  Sir  Henry,  33,  105-106,  148,  186, 
210,  21 1, 215 
Portrait  of,  144 
Cole,  Timothy,  334-36,  393 
Cole,  Vicat,  1  x  1 
Collingwood,  W.  G.,  153,  166 
Collins,  Wilkie,  69 
Colvin,  Sir  Sidney,  127,  244,  345 
Comstock,  Gen.  C.  B.,  24 
Conder,  Charles,  408 
Conway,  Dr.  Moncure,  100,  245 
Cook,  E.  T.,  81 
Cooper,  T.  S.,  69 
Coquelin  Aine,  224 
Corder,  Miss  Rosa,  154 

Portrait  of  (Arrangement  in  Black 
and  Brown),  145,  164,  184,  206, 
277,  296,  369, 422 
Cordier,  91 
Coronio,  Mrs.,  55 

Courbet,  G.,  34,  46,  47,  48,  52,  53,  54, 
63,  66,  67,  68,  86,  95,  102,  103,  1 12, 
194, 215, 250, 251 
Courbet  on  the  Shore,  95 
“  Court  and  Society  Review,  The,”  232- 
33.  256-57 

Couture,  T.,  34,  35,  250 
Cowan,  J.  J.,  193 

Portrait  of  ( Grey  Man),  320,  321 
Crabb,  Capt.,  131 
Crackenthorpe,  Hubert,  276 
Crane,  Walter,  151-53,  174,  267 
Creditor,  The  (see  Gold  Scab),  186 
Cremorne  Gardens,  75-77,  143 


437 


Index 


CrSpuscule  {Flesh -Colour  and  Green), 

86,  99 

Crockett,  S.  R.,  33° 

Portrait  of  (Grey  Man),  33° 
f‘  Chronique  des  Beaux-Arts”  300 
“  Cuckoo,  The,”  205 
Curtis,  Ralph,  190,  192,  193,  239 
Cust,  Henry,  283 

Dabo,  Leon,  43 
D’Ache,  Caran,  394 
“  Daily  Chronicle ,  The,”  328-29,  347 
“  Daily  Graphic,  The,”  328-29 
“  Daily  Mail,  The,”  3°S 
“  Daily  News,  The,”  142,  167,  244 
f  Daily  Telegraph,  The,"  59,  66,  244 
Dalou,  J . ,  1 3° 

Dalziel  Brothers,  71 
Dam  Wood,  The,  123 
“  Danbury  News,"  136 
Dance  House,  The,  5°,  27 3 
Dannat,  W.  T.,  261 
Daughter  of  Eve,  A,  422 
Davenport,  Dr.,  321 
David,  34,  359 
Davis,  Edmund,  59>  372 
Davis,  Jefferson,  28 
Day,  Mr.  Justice,  178 
Day,  Lewis  F.,  241 
Degas,  H.  G.  E.,  34.  52,  237.  25i  345 
Delacroix,  E.,  91,  251 
Hommage  &,  91 
Delannoy,  Ernest,  37,  41-46 
Delaroche,  Paul,  34 
Delhtre,  A.,  49.  5°.  62 >  84 
Denny,  Annie,  33 
Deschamps,  Charles,  109,  187 
Design  for  a  Mosaic  { Gold  Girl),  105 
Desnoyers,  Fernand,  7  3  ~74 
Desoye,  Mine.,  84 
“  Detroit  Free  Press,”  136 
Dicey,  F.,  1 36 
Dicksee,  Frank,  ill 
Disraeli  (Lord  Beaconsfield),  164 
Dobbin,  James  C.,  28 
Doria  Palace,  359 
Dordrecht— A  Little  Red  Note,  254 
Dowdeswell,  Messrs.,  186-87,  206,  21 1, 
257,  304 

Dowdeswell,  Walter,  134.  2IO<  233, 
257-58,  263 
Drake,  A.  W.,  221 


Draughn,  Miss  Marian,  355 

Dresden  Museum,  108 

Drouet,  C.,  37.  39.  49.  5°.  51.  S2>  b5. 

67,  3l7>  363.  364 

Portrait  of,  50,  65 

Du  Maurier,  G.,  35.  36.  4°.  55.  5  >57 
60,  61,  169,  253,  323-25 

Dublin  Modern  Art  Gallery,  130 
Dublin  Sketching  Club  Exhibition 

239-40 

Duchatel,  E.,  307 
Dudley  Gallery,  109,  143 
Dunn,  Henry  Treffy,  85,  i?9 
Dunthorne’s  Gallery,  274-75 
Duran,  Carolus,  48,  194.  393 
Durand-Ruel,  109,  4°° 

Duranty,  91,  161 
Diirer,  184 

Duret,  Theodore,  x,  34.  48.  52>  67>  95* 
99,  143,  20X,  2x5,  273,  307.  317. 
430,431,432  , 

Portrait  of  (Flesh-Colour  and 
Black),  215,  231-32 
Dutchman  holding  the  Glass,  The,  50 
Duveneck,  Frank, 188-92,  205,  206 

East,  Sir  A.,  248,  43X  _ 

Eastwick,  Messrs.  Harrison  and,  7,  13 
Eaton,  Sir  F.,  3° 5 
Eddy,  A.  J .,  3, 103.  352 
Portrait  of,  320 

Eden  Case,  325-27.  34°.  346-53 

Eden,  Sir  W.,  340.  349,  362 

Eden,  Lady,  Portrait  of  (Brown  and 

Gold),  322,  349  .  . 

Edinburgh  Exhibition,  277 
Edwards,  Edwin,  65,  66,  109,  13° 
Edwards,  Mrs.,  65,  66,  181 
Eeden,  F.  Van,  268 
Effie  Deans,  X4S,  276-77.  4U 
Egg,  A.  L.,  69 
Eldon,  W.,  135,  211,  233 
Ellis,  F.  S.,  178 
Eloise,  39 
Elweli,  Mr.,  398 
Portrait  of,  355 

Embroidered  Curtain,  The,  273 
Encamping,  65,  66 
Encampment,  An,  22 
“  English  Etchings,"  272  _  ,, 

“  English  Illustrated  Magazine,  The, 
238 


438 


Index 


Erskine,  The  Hon.  Stuart,  276 
“  Etching  and  Etchers ,”  106 
Etchings  from  Nature,  Two,  53 

Fagan,  L.,  362 

Falling  Rocket,  The  (Nocturne  in  Black 
and  Gold),  143,  152,  164,  170,  172, 
1 73,  174. I7S.  178,  302 
Fan,  Study  for  a,  373 
Fan,  The  (Red  and  Black),  322 
Fantin-Latour,  34,  37,  47,  48,  49,  51- 
54,  57,  62,  63,  66-68,  73,  74,  79,  84, 
86,  91,  93,  102,  103,  107,  109,  113, 
117,  i 18,  129,  130,  215,  251,  322, 
364,  400 

Farge,  John  La,  358 
Farquharson,  J.,  366 
Farren,  Nellie,  157 
“  Fine  Arts  Quarterly,  The,”  73 
Fine  Art  Society,  185,  186,  188,  201- 
205,  217,  245,  328,  340, 424-25 
Fire  Wheel,  The,  164 
“  First  Sermon,  The,”  71 
Fish  Shop,  The — Busy  Chelsea,  260,  276 
Flesh-Colour  and  Grey,  219 
Flower,  C.,  134 
Flower,  Wickham,  159,  187 
Mrs.  Wickham,  1 59 
Forbes,  Archibald,  240 
Forbes,  C.  S.,  189,  20: 

Forbes,  J.  Staats,  250 
Ford,  Sheridan,  159,  282,  285-91 
Mrs.  Sheridan,  285,  287 
Forge,  The,  67,  72 
“  Fors  Clavigera,”  168 
“  Fortnightly  Review,  The,”  81,  245-46 
Foster,  John,  56 
“  Four  Masters  of  Etching,”  184 
Francesca,  Piero  della,  160 
Franklin,  Miss  Maud,  125,  135,  157, 
189, 193,  204,  209,  232,  269 
Etching,  155 

Portrait  of  ( Arrangement  in  Black 
and  White,  No.  1 ),  1 57,  1 58,  206 
Frederick,  Harold,  342 
Free  Trade  Wharf,  185 
Freer,  C.  L.,  57,  93,  141,  151,  208,  210, 
272,  302,  412,  413,  427-30,  432 
French  Artists,  Society  of,  109,  143 
French  Gallery,  the,  99,  109 
French  Set  of  Etchings,  the,  43-44,  49- 
50,  61,  196 


Freshfield,  D.,  127 
Frieseke,  Frederick,  387 
Frith,  W.  P.,  58,  69,  175 
Fromentin,  Eugene,  184 
Fulleylove,  J.,  315 
Fulleylove,  Mrs.,  315 
Fumette,  39,  49 

Fur  Jacket,  The  (Black  and  Brown, 
Brown,  Amber  and  Black),  145,  152, 
164,  276,  277,  302,  305,  428 
Furse,  C.  W.,  284,  306,  366 

Galsworthy,  Mrs.,  135 
Garden,  The,  198,  284 
Gardens,  The  (Cremorne),  260 
Gautier,  Theophile,  101 
Gay,  W.,  317,  318 

“  Gazette  des  Beaux -Arts,”  74,  86,  93, 
102,  161,  201, 215, 272 
Gee,  H.,  135 

“  Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies,  The,” 
89,  106,  1 1 6,  126,  127,  159,  167,  177, 
206,  226,  234,  244,  246,  247,  266,  279, 
282, 284, 285-95,  300,  324. SSL  413 
Gerard,  Mere,  39-40,  47,  50,  51,  66 
Gerdme,  J.  L.,  34,  250 
Gibson,  C.  D.,  355 
Gilbert,  A.,  277,  342-43,  345,  366 
Gilchrist,  Miss  Connie,  Portrait  ( Gold 
Girl),  145,  157,  184,  186,  187,  428 
Gilder,  R.  W.,  221 
Giudecca  (Nocturne),  201 
Glasgow  Corporation,  295 
Glasgow  Exhibition,  279 
Glasgow  Institute  of  Fine  Arts,  97,  327 
Glasgow  .University,  425-26 
Gleyre,  34-35,  37,  39,  43,  250,  323 
Godwin,  E.  W.,  149,  158,  161,  162,  186, 
203,  204,  268,  295 
Godwin,  E.  (junior),  90,  351 
Godwin,  Mrs.  Beatrix  (later  Mrs.  J, 
McN.  Whistler),  233,  259,  268- 
7 1,  290,  295,  299,  301,  306,  309, 

3II_I9>  325-3i 
Death  of,  330 

Portrait  of  (Harmony  in  Red  : 
Lamplight),  259 
Gold  Scab,  The,  183,  186,  187 
Gold  Screen,  The  (Purple  and  Gold),  86, 
92 

Goncourt,  Edmond  de,  50,  84,  281 
Goncourts,  the  de,  84 


439 


Index 


“  Good  Words,''  71 
Goold,  Miss,  280 
Gosse,  Edmund,  131,  272 
Goulding,  Frederick,  65,  1 97,  20I>  202 < 
345 

Goupil  Gallery,  64,  187,  264,  296-300 
Grafton  Gallery,  308 
Graham,  William,  152,  169,  171,  *9*> 
256 

Grahame,  Kenneth,  283 
Grand,  Mrs.  Sarah,  396 
Grande  Place,  Brussels,  279 
Grant,  General,  U.S.,  94 
Graves,  Algernon,  163,  173,  206 

Henry,  144.  *55,  i63.  i64.  *77. 
206,  236 

Gravesande,  S.  Van  s’,  413-14 
Gray,  W.  E.,  391 

Great  Sea,  The  { Green  and  Silver),  372 
Greaves,  Walter  and  Harry,  62-65,  7 5~ 
79,  90,  97,  98,  114,  ns.  **7>  1  *9> 
123, 128-30,  134, 147.  *48-49,  336 
Green  and  Violet,  255,  343 
Greenaway,  Kate,  166 
Gregg,  Gen.  D.  McN.»  24 
Greiffenhagen,  M.,  366 
Gretchen  at  Heidelberg,  44 
Grey  and  Gold,  116 
Grey  Man,  The,  320-21,  330-3* 

Grist,  Mr.,  190 
Grolier  Club,  196 
Exhibition,  347 
Grossmith,  G.,  56 

Grosvenor  Gallery,  i5*-52>  *57-58, 

184, 24s,  279,  365 
“  Grosvenor  Notes,”  1 58 
Guardi,  101,  187,  336,  337 
Guitar  Player,  The,  66 
Guthrie,  Sir  James,  295.  3*7>  366,  37*. 
425,  432 

Haanen,  E.  Van,  190, 192 
Haarlem  Gallery,  118,  416-19 
Haden,  Annie,  59 
Drypoint,  65 
Etching, 

Haden,  Lady,  4,  6,  10,  16,  17,  53,  55, 
222, 325 

Haden,  Sir  F.  Seymour,  16-18,  33,  43, 
49-50,  S3,  54,  S6>  58.  63,  75,  *°°>  *OI« 
201,  205,  206,  208,  222,  279,  341. 
Haghe,  Louis,  22,  155-56 

440 


I  Hague,  The,  Exhibition,  74 
Halkett,  G.  R.,  220 
Halle,  C.  E„  152 

Hals,  Franz,  49,  91,  102,  118,  194,  252, 
415-19 

Hamerton,  P.  G^,  73,  75,  *°2>  106-107 
118,  272 

Hamilton,  Dr.,  205 
Hamilton,  J.  McLure,  285 
Hannay,  A.  A.,  Portrait  of,  331 
Hanover  Gallery  Exhibition,  205,  206 
Hare,  Augustus,  183 
Harland,  H.,  284,  306 
Mrs.  284 

“  Harper’s  Magazine ,”  323,  324 

Harpignies,  H.,  73 

Harris,  F.,  342,  345 

Harrison,  Alex.,  317,  320,  364,  393,  394 

Harrison,  Henry,  51 

Harrison,  R.  H.  C.,  171,  256 

Harry,  Gerard,  280,  288 

Harte,  Bret,  135 

Hartley  Institution,  Southampton, 

142 

Haweis,  Rev.  H.  R.,  173 
“  Hawk,  The,”  295 
Hawkins,  Gen.  Rush  C.,  278-79 
Haxton,  Mr.,  284 
Head  of  Old  Man  Smoking,  52 
Heffernan,  Joanna,  see  Jo 
Heinemann,  E.,  338 
Heinemann,  W.,  141,  1 59,  268,  276, 
284,  291-92,  332,  334,  337-4°,  342, 
347,  349-  358.  359,  362,  364,  369. 
373,  389,  390,  393.  4°°,  4°4>  4°7 
413,  420,  424,  429,  431 
Heinemann,  Mrs.,  Portrait  of,  422 
Helleu,  P.,  3*6,  343,  346 
Heist,  Van  der,  91 

Henley,  W.  E.,  282-84,  327,  340,  389, 

43° 

Herbert,  J.  R.,  250 

Herkomer,  Sir  H.  von,  111,  282,  342> 

360 

Heseltine,  J.  P.,  179 
Hiroshige,  02,  113,  14* 

His  Reverence,  423 
“  History  of  Modern  Illustration,”  71 
Hogarth,  15-16,  102,  155,  230-31,  252, 

336,337.422,432  „  , 

Hogarth  Club,  14°;  258,  260—61,  2 65 » 
287 


Index 


Hogg,  Hon.  J.,  239-40 
Hokusai,  84 
Holbein,  48 
Holdgate,  Mr.,  163 
Hole,  W.,  220 

Holker,  Sir  John,  167,  170,  171,  172, 
173 

Holloway,  C.  E.,  329,  331,  343 
Holmes,  G.  A.,  142,  238,  264 
Holmes,  Sir  R.  R.,  108 
Hommage  A  la  Verite  ( see  Fantin),  93 
Horniman,  E.  J.,  234 
Horsley,  J.  C„  93,  255,  256 
Houghton,  A.  B.,  57,  137 
Hour  in  the  Life  of  a  Cadet,  An,  22 
“  Hour,  The,”  127 
Howard,  F.,  365,  366,  431 
Howard,  Gen.  O.  O.,  24 
Howell,  C.  A.,  79,  81-83,  84,  85,  137, 
140,  144,  154-55,  162,  163,  183,  187, 
188, 206, 209, 217,  400 
Howells,  W.  D.,  317 
Hubbard,  Elbert,  426-27 
Hubbell,  Henry  S.,  387 
Huddleston,  Baron,  167,  173 
Hueffer,  Ford  Madox,  84 
Huish,  M.  B.,  178,  186 
Hungerford,  Mrs.,  212 
Hungerford  Bridge,  72 
Hunt,  W.  Holman,  61,  1  51,  250,  252, 
267 

Huth,  Louis,  85,  109,  137 
Huth,  Mrs.,  125-26,  209 
Portrait  of,  125-26,  354 

Illustrators,  Society  of,  327,  341 
“  Indipendance  Beige,”  288 
Ingram,  W.  Ayerst,  248,  258,  263-65 
Ingres,  51,  103,  360 
International  Society  of  Sculptors, 
Painters,  and  Gravers,  268,  351, 
365-73 

Exhibitions,  109,  356,  369,  371-73 
Ionides,  the,  109 

Aleco,  35,  55,  152 
Alexander,  35,  88,  107 
Helen  ( see  Mrs.  William  Whistler), 
152 

Luke,  35,  37,  39,  41,  43,  55,  60,  61, 
94,  133,  152,  298,  302,  400, 
420,  423 
Portrait  of,  63 


Iris,  The  ( see  Miss  Kinsella),  410 
Irving,  Sir  Henry 

Portrait  of  (Arrangement  in  Black) t 
24,  83,  143-44.  152.  153.  164, 
170,  173,  184,  206,  280,  428 
Isle  de  la  Cite,  59,  199 
Israels,  J.,  277,  413 
Iwan-Muller,  E.  B.,  283 
Ives,  Prof.  H.  C,,  305,  426 

Jackson,  F.  Ernest,  120 
Jacomb-Hood,  G.  P.,  187,  31 1 
Jacquemart,  J.,  84 
James,  F.,  165,  280,  284 
Jameson,  F.,  103-105,  109 
Japanese  Art,  102,  112,  1x3,  199 
Jarvis,  Lewis,  187 
Jekyll,  146,  149 
Jersey,  216 

Jeune,  Lady  (Lady  St.  Helier),  245 
Jobbins,  Mr.,  190,  201 
“  Jo  ”  (Mrs.  Joanna  Abbott),  63,  67, 
84,  91-92,  129,  185 
Portrait  of,  67,  155 
Johnson  Club,  278 
Johnson,  Dr,,  390 
Johnston,  Humphreys,  317 
Jongkind,  J.  'll,  73 
Jopling-Rowe,  Mrs.,  269 
Josey,  R.,  163,  164 
Junior  Etching  Club,  65,  68,  272 

Keene,  C.,  55,  57,  166-67,  260,  278 
Kelly,  F„  283 
Kennedy,  David,  423 
Kennedy,  E.  G.,  65,  141,  31  5,  331,  332- 
34.  346,  347.  348,  393.  43* 

Kensington  Gardens,  328 
Keppel,  F.,  107,  222 
Kerr-Lawson,  J.,  360 
Key,  J.  Ross,  30-31 
Kingsley,  Martha,  4 
Kinsella,  Miss,  Portrait  of.  The  Iris 
(Rose  and  Green),  321-22,  343, 

4x0 

Kingston-Lacy  Collection,  407 
Kipling,  Mrs.,  284 
Kipling,  R.,  283 
Kitchen,  The,  197 
Kruger,  President,  27-28 
Mrs.,  395 


Labouchere,  H.,  29,  268-69 
Lady  at  a  Window,  1 55 
Lagoon,  The,  197 
Lagrange,  L.(  93 
Lamartine,  M.,  12 
Lambert,  John,  38,  41,  393 
Lament,  T.  R.,  35 
Lamour,  313 

Landor,  A.  H.  Savage,  337-38 
Landseer,  Sir  E.,  93 
Lang,  A.,  135 

Langdon,  Gen.  L.  L.,  23-25 
Lange  Leizen  ( Purple  and  Rose),  86,  9°. 
302 

Langtry,  Mrs.,  Portrait  of,  21 1 
Lannion,  The  Yellow  House,  316 
Lanteri,  Prof.  E.,  130,  223,  41  x 
Lamed,  Col.,  20-22 
Last  of  Old  Westminster,  The,  72 
Laurens,  J.  P.,  73.  25° 

Laveille,  A.,  84 

La  very,  J.,  2 97,  317,  365.  366,  370,  37 L 
420,  424,  430,  431,  432 
Lawless,  Hon.  F.,  223 
Lawson,  C.,  158,  272 
Leathart,  j.,  109,  302 
Lee,  Col.  R.  E,,  20,  22 
Lee,  Gen.,  24 
Lee,  T.  Stirling,  43 x 
Leech,  J.,  55,  155 

“  Legendary  Ballads ,”  71 
Legion  of  Honour,  297 
Legros,  A.,  37,  47,  48,  52>  53»  54.  60 
61,  63,  73,  91,  IOI,  146,  20s 
Leighton,  Lord,  35,  xn.  -  S2>  I53»  l77 
229,  231,  245,  249,  250,  251, 253,  258, 
304 

Lemercier,  307 
Lenoir,  Miss,  240 
Leslie,  C.  R.,  93,  250 
L’Estampe  Originate,  323 
Lewis,  Arthur,  56 

Lewis,  Sir  G.,  182,  288,  290,  342, 
344 

Leyland,  F.  R.,  88,  99*  IOS>  io9«  1  ‘  S> 
123,  124,  125,  132,  146-51,  183, 
184,  186,  215,  302 
Portrait  of,  215 

Leyland,  Mrs.,  1x5—16,  123,  124—25 
126,  134,  135.  IS2.  1 69.  2°9 
Portraits  of,  123,  125 
Fanny  Leyland,  5° 


Index 

Leyland,  Florence,  Portrait  0  ( Blue 

Girl),  124,  186,  428 
Liberty,  L.,  85 

Lillie  in  oar  Alley,  356,  358,  371 

Linde,  Dr.,  157 

Lindenkohl,  A.,  30-31 

Lindsay,  Sir  Coutts,  151-52,  168,  169 

2  77 

Lindsey  Palace,  76 

Lindsey  Row,  houses  in,  75,  76,  97 
127-42,  144 
Lippi,  Filippo,  146 
Lithography  and  Lithographers,  323 
Lithography  Case,  342-46 
Little  Blue  Bonnet,  357,  369 
Little  Cardinal,  424 
Little  Evelyn,  355 
“  Little  Journeys,”  426-27 
Little  Lady  Sophie  of  Soho,  358,  37 1 
Little  Pool,  The,  61 
Little  Putney,  The,  185 
Little  Red  Note,  A,  264 
Little  Rose  of  Lyme  Regis,  The,  27 
327»  358,  428 
Little  Venice,  221-22 
Little  White  Girl,  The  ( Symphony  in 
White,  No.  II.),  63,  91-92.  93 
125,  302-303,  393,  401 
Verses  on,  92 
Liverdun,  43 

Livermore,  Mrs.,  x,  5-6,  9 
Liverpool  Art  Club  Exhibition,  138. 
142 

Lobsters,  The  Loves  of  the,  183, 
186 

Logsdail,  W.,  190 
“  London  Garland,”  327 
London  Memorial  Exhibition,  51,  64 
66,  72,  74,  104,  105,  108,  1 17.  120 
171,  196,  210, 304, 321 
Long,  E.,  250 
Lorimer,  J.  H.,  263 
Louvre,  the,  41-42,  46, 47. 48. 52< 3J8 
408 

Lovell,  John  M.,  292 
Low,  Will  H.  427 
Lowell,  1,4,  5,  26 
Lucas,  G.,  99,  143 
Ludovici,  A.,  238,  254,  43X 
Luxembourg,  296-97,  404 
Lynden,  Baron  Van,  277 
Baroness  Van,  277 


Index 


MacCall,  C.  H.,  291 
MacColl,  D.  S.,  138,  306,  308,  340,  367, 
425-26 

MacGeorge  Collection,  the,  423 
Maclise,  D.,  69 
Macmillan,  Messrs.,  327 
MacMonnies,  F.,  217,  318,  326,  349, 
3 73,  374,  382-85 
Maeterlinck,  M„  288 
“  Magazine  of  Art,  The,"  264,  401 
Major’s  Daughter,  The,  71 
Mallarme,  S.,  307,  31 1,  317 
Portrait  of,  307 

Manchester  Art  Treasures  Exhibition, 
47, 229 

Manet,  E.,  52,  73,  74,  84,  91,  93,  194, 
215,  216,  251,  400,  431 
Mann,  Mr.,  Portrait  of,  65 
Mansfield,  Burton,  94,  120 
Mansfield,  Howard,  55,  208,  404 
Mantz,  P.,  74,  93,  99,  100,  101 
Manuel,  Master  Stephen,  355 
Marchande  de  Moutarde,  La,  50,  272 
Marchant,  William,  300 
Maris,  J.  M.,  277 

Marks,  Murray,  84,  85,  107,  146,  156 

Marks,  Stacy,  56,  250 

Marlborough,  Duke  of,  300-301 

Marmalade,  Marquis  de,  96-97,  100 

Marriott -Watson,  H.  B.,  283 

Martin,  J.,  76 

Martin,  B.  E.,  221 

Martin,  Henri,  37,  47,  53 

Martin,  Homer,  141 

Martinet,  73 

Marty,  P.,  307 

Marx,  Roger,  296-97 

Marzetti,  Mrs.,  211-13,  218 

Mason,  George,  57 

Master  Smith,  The,  271,  327,  334,  358, 
428 

Mathew,  Justice,  344 
Mauritshuis,  the,  41 5,  419 
Maus,  O.,  273 
McCarthy,  J.,  294-95 
McClure,  S.  S.,  284 
“  McClure’s  Magazine,"  324-25 
McCulloch,  G.,  57 
McNeill,  Alicia,  6,  9,  10,  18 
Charles  Donald,  4 
Donald,  4 
Martha,  4 


McNeill,  William  G.,  4 
May,  Henry,  351 
Phil,  340,  355 
Mazzini,  1 18 
Melbourne  Museum,  108 
Melnikofi,  Col.,  5,  7 
Melville,  A.,  286,  288,  366 
Menpes,  M.,  138,  159,  199,  201  202 
206,  222,  229-30,  238,  240,  254 
259,  265, 294-95 

Mere  Gerard,  La,  39-40,  47,  51,  66 
Etching,  50 

Meredith,  G.,  79-81,  247 
Merritt,  Mrs.,  115,  207,  241 
Meryon,  C.,  59,  141 
Mesdag,  H.  W.,  277,  413,  419 
Metsu,  337 

Meux,  Lady,  210,  216,  239 

Portrait  of  ( Flesh-Colour  and 
Pink),  209,  216,  239 
Portrait  of  (Black  and  White),  209, 
216,  308 

Portrait  in  Sables,  210 
Milcendeau,  Charles,  317 
Miles,  Frank,  212,  223,  224 
Miles,  F.  B.,  27,  37-38 
Millais,  Sir  J.  E.,  53,  61,  92,  in,  146, 
152,  153,  164,  249,  252,  295 
Millbank,  197 
Mirbeau,  O.,  317,  327 
Miser,  The,  197 
Mitchell,  Dr.  Chalmers,  431 
“  Modern  Men,"  282 
“  Modern  Painting,"  285 
Moncrieff,  Mrs.,  1 37,  181 
Monet,  C.,  264 
Mont,  Neven  du,  431 
Montesquiou,  Comte  de,  281-82,  317 

427 

Portrait  of,  155,  281 
Montezuma,  40 
Montiori,  Mrs.,  135 
Moody,  Mr.,  148 

Moore,  Albert,  57,  76,  102,  129,  134, 
141,  146,  166,  173,  179,  225 
Moore,  Augustus,  295 
Moore,  George,  285,  325-27,  345,  350 
Moore,  Henry,  142 
Moreau,  Gustave,  387 
Morgan,  Mr,,  299 

Morning  before  the  Massacre  of  St 
Bartholomew,  The,  71,  72 

443 


Index 


“  Morning  Post,  The,”  148,  413 
Morris,  Harrison  S.,  412,  427 
Mrs.,  412 
Morris,  Phil,  119 

Morris,  W.,  85,  107,  146,  160,  184,  225, 

241.  329 

Morrison,  A.,  283 
Morse,  S.,  160,  217,  362 
Morse,  Mrs.,  160 

Mother,  The  ( Arrangement  in  Grey  and 
Black,  No.  I.)  {see  Mrs.  Whistler) 
52,  no,  x  17,  1 18,  1 19,  120,  163, 
164,  207-208,  219,  236,  276, 
279-80 

Dry-point,  155 
Moulton,  Mrs.,  19-20 
Mulready,  W.,  148 

Munich  International  Exhibition,  276 
Murano  Glass  Furnace,  191 
Murger,  37,  101 

Music  Room,  The  ( Green  and  Rose), 
63-64,  298 

Nash,  J.,  22 

National  Academy  of  Design,  368 
National  Art  Exhibition,  1886,  267 
National  Art  Collections  Fund,  171 
note 

National  Gallery,  the,  47,  108,  nx-12, 
210 

“  National  (Scots)  Observer,  The,”  282- 
33 

Naval  Review  Set,  263,  264,  370 
Neighbours,  The  ( Gold  and  Orange), 
372 

New  English  Art  Club,  279,  340, 

367 

New  Gallery,  152,  279,  304,  372 
New  York  Etching  Club,  208 
“  New  York  Herald,”  278-79.  285, 
286 

New  York  Metropolitan  Museum,  144, 
208,331,428 

New  York  Public  Library,  100,  xo8 
“  New  York  State  Library  Bulletin” 

324 

Nicholson,  W.,  347 
“  Nineteenth  Century,  The,”  184 
Norman,  the  Misses,  4x3 
Norton,  C.  E.,  167 
Noseda,  Mrs.,  163 
Note  Blanche,  67 

444 


Obach,  Messrs.,  151,  158 
“  Observer,”  256 
Ochtervelt,  407 
Old  Westminster  Bridge,  72 
“  Once  a  Week,”  71 

Orchardson,  Sir  W.  Q.,  hi,  230,  2 77 

295 

Osborne,  Walter,  399 

Oulevey,  H.,  37,  39,  41,  42>  48.  5°.  3 l7> 

364 

Pacific,  The,  184 
“  P addon  Papers,  The,”  83,  217 
“  Pageant,  The,”  323 
Painter-Etchers,  The  Royal  Society  of, 

205 

Palaces,  Nocturne,  198,  2x8 
Pall  Mall,  exhibition  at,  142 
“  Pall  Mall  Gazette,”  127,  216,  244, 
254,  266, 274, 323,  326-27 
“  Pall  Mall  Pictures,”  260 
Palmer,  Amos,  10 
Palmer,  Miss,  4-5,  18,  19 
Palmer,  Mrs.  Potter,  359 
Paris,  Centenary  Exhibition,  327 
Paris,  Memorial  Exhibition,  67,  105 
Paris,  Universal  Exhibitions,  158,  161, 
276, 278-79,  392-93 
Park,  Rev.  Roswell,  19-20 
Parrish,  S.,  222 

Parry,  Mr.  Sergeant  (now  Judge),  166- 
80 

Parsons,  Alfred,  341 

“  Passages  from  Modern  English  Poets,” 
68 

Pater,  W.,  225,  241 
Pawling,  S.  S.,  331 

Peacock  Room,  The,  88,  142-51,  159' 
188, 306 

Pearsall,  Booth,  239 
Peck,  Miss — -Portrait  of,  321 
Pellegrini,  C.,  140.  I4U  1 57.  224-  l21 
Pennell  (J.),  7 1,  221-23,  274,  282,  284, 
306-16,  325,  328,  33U  332,  342,  344. 

1345.  37°.  372.  389.  39°.  391-  392. 
393,  404,  405-406,  414-19,  421,  422, 
423,  425,  426,  429,  430,  431 
Pennell)  Mrs.  (E.),  33  U  3^4.  39°. 

391,  405,  4x4,  4l8.  4r9>  424.  429> 
43° 

Pennington,  Harper,  1x7,  118,  190, 
193,  200,  210,  223,  224,  230,  235 


Index 


Pennsylvania  Academy,  207-208,  325, 
427 

Pepys,  Samuel,  2 
Perivier,  President,  349 
Petheram,  Mr.,  167-80 
Philadelphia  Society  of  Etchers,  208 
Philip,  John  Birnie,  268 
Philip,  Mrs.  Birnie,  407,  410,  413,  420, 
421 

Philip,  R.  Birnie,  403 
Portrait  of,  354—55 

Philip,  Miss  R.  Birnie,  210,  272,  327, 
331,  332.  337.  362,  372,  389.  390. 
392r  393.  394.  397.  398>  409-4“. 
413,  422,  424,  429,  430,  432 
Phillip,  John,  58-59 
Phillips,  Sir  Claude,  254 
Philosopher,  The  ( see  Holloway),  331, 

369 

Phryne  the  Superb,  372 
Piano  Picture,  The  (At  the  Piano),  47, 
52,  53.  58-59.  64.  70,  99- 369 
Picard,  E.,  288-89 
“  Piccadilly,”  156 
Piccadilly  ( Grey  and  Gold),  239 
“  Piker  Papers,  The,”  206 
Poe,  E.  A.,  26,  46 
Pollitt,  A.  J.,  Portrait  of,  328,  330 
Pomfret,  18-20 
Pool,  The,  72 
Poole,  R.  W.,  346 
“  Portfolio,  The,”  177,  185,  272 
Portrait  Painters’  Exhibition,  424 
Potter,  G.,  109,  136,  302 
Potter,  Mrs.,  47,  137 
Power scourt.  Lord,  238 
Poynter,  Sir  E.  J.,  35,  36,  38,  49,  55, 
60,  69,  104,  iix-12,  147,  152,  153, 
169, 1 77, 201,  249, 253,  360 
Pretty  Nelly  Brown,  355 
Prince,  Miss,  387 
Prince’s  Hall,  238,  240 
Princesse  du  Pays  de  la  Porcelaine,  La, 
86,  87,  88,  93,  109, 146, 187,  302,  305, 

369 

Prinsep,  Val,  56,  57,  79,  93.  “6,  129, 
245 

Probyn,  Sir  Dighton,  148 
“  Propositions  No.  2,”  219 
“  Proposition,  A  Further,”  233 
“  Propositions,”  257,  294 
“  Punch, }'  55,  253 


Punt,  The,  66,  68 
Putnam,  Messrs.,  292 
Putney  Bridge,  no,  184,  185 
Puvis  de  Chavannes,  160,  316,  358 

Quilter,  H.,  162,  186,  190-91 

Rae,  George,  no 

Raffalovitch,  A.,  284 

Rajon,  P.,  233 

Raleigh,  Sir  W.,  284,  425 

Ratier,  Maitre,  326 

Rawlinson,  W.  J.,  109,  137,  154,  163 

Red  House,  Paimpol,  316 

Red  Note,  264 

Red  Rag,  294 

Redesdale,  Lord,  116,  127,  132,  136, 
142, 144, 148,  186-87 
Portrait  of,  144-45 
Redesdale,  Lady,  144 
Regent's  Quadrant,  272 
Regnault,  H.,  194 
Relief  Fund  in  Lancashire,  71 
Rembrandt,  47,  52,  60,  61,  67,  68,  74, 
91,  102,  166,  243,  274,  275,  307, 
4i5 

Renouard,  P.,  331 
Renan,  Ary,  374 
Repplier,  Agnes,  220 
Reveillon,  Mrs.,  64,  431 
Reynolds,  Sir  J.,  5,  184,  294,  360 
Rhine  Journey  Sketches,  52 
Rhodes,  Cecil,  328 
Riault,  M.,  49 

Portrait  of,  65 
Ribot,  T.,  52,  53,  401 
Ricketts,  C.,  366 
Rico,  M.,  190,  192 
Ridley,  M.  W.,  65-66 
Portrait  of,  212 

Ritchie,  Lady,  17,  33,  34,  59,  149 
Riva,  198 

Robertson,  G.,  373,  422 
Robins,  Miss  E.,  340 
Robinson,  Lionel,  147 
Rodd,  Sir  R.,  24,  138,  212,  224 
Rodenbach,  G.,  317 
Rodin,  A.,  316,  321,  371,  372,  384,  40S, 
410-1 1 

Roland,  Marcel,  258 
Rolshoven,  J.,  190 
Romeike,  282,  283 


445 


Index 


Rose,  A.,  109,  142,  158,  162,  166,  173, 
179 

Rose  and  Red,  279 
Ross,  Alexander,  306 
Robert,  306 

Rossetti,  D.  G.,  79-80,  82-85,  87,  88, 
92,  98,  100,  101,  107-109,  136,  146, 

1 51,  167,  181,  225,  250,  393,  400, 
408 

Rossetti,  W,  M.,  59,  68,  70,  79,  81,  84, 
85,  90,  91,  92,  97,  100,  xoi,  105,  131, 
165, 172-73,  179 
Rothenstein,  W.,  345,  366 
Rotherhithe,  62,  68 
Roussel,  T.»  57.  96,  260,  284,  290 
Roussoff,  P.,  1 91 
Rowley,  J.»  35~36 

Royal  Academy,  x8,  53,  58,  63,  66,  68, 
72,90,  102,  109,  no,  hi,  142,  143, 
184 

Royal  Academy,  Students’  Club,  245 
Ruben,  Mr.,  191 

Rucellai,  Countess.  See  Miss  E.  Bronson 
Ruggles,  Gen.,  23 

Raskin,  John,  81,  92,  113,  143,  I53> 
165-80,  184,  225,  241,  294,  336 
Ruskin  Libel  Action,  165-80 
Russian  Schube,  The,  329 
Rutter,  Frank,  214 

Sackett,  Major,  23 
St.  Gaudens,  A.,  305 
St.  George,  193 
St.  James’s  Street,  155 
St.  John’s,  Westminster,  332 
St.  Louis  Exhibition,  426 
St.  Mark’s  (Blue  and  Gold),  193*  2°°» 
259 

St.  Mary  Abbots’,  Whistler  married  in, 
269 

St.  Petersburg,  12-14 
St.  Petersburg  Academy  of  Fine  Arts, 
11,  15 

Hermitage,  The,  16 
Sala,  George  Augustus,  72 
Salaman,  M.,  232-33,  256-58 
Salon,  52,  93,  99,  216,  219,  257,  296 
306,  354,  356,  424 
Salon  des  Refuses,  73-74.  100 
Sandys,  F.,  79,  83,  359,  3 66 
Sarah  Brown  Students’  Revolution, 
Paris,  315-16 

446 


Sarasate,  P.,  159 

Portrait  of,  90,  125,  221,  254,  257, 
260,  296,  347,  428 

Sargent,  J.  S„  239,  305.  3*7.  32§.  335~ 
36,  401,  426 

“  Saturday  Review,”  102,  12 7,  233,  342, 
400 

Sauter,  G.,  365,  366,  409,  412,  414- 
20 

Sauter,  Mrs.,  418,  419 
Savoy  Scaffolding,  240 
Scarf,  The,  92-93 
Scharfe,  Sir  G.,  219-20 
Scheffer,  A.,  31,  35,  250 
Schmitz,  Herr,  44-45 
Scottish  National  Portraits  Exhibition, 
2 1 9-20 

“  Scotsman,”  313 

Scott,  W.,  190,  191,  195 

Scott,  W.  B.,  79 

“  Scribner’s  Magazine,”  185,  208 

Sea  and  Rain,  95,  101,  302 

Seeley  and  Co.,  185 

Seitz,  Don  C.,  290 

Seton,  Miss,  Portrait  of  (see  Daughter 
of  Eve),  422 

Severn,  A.,  56,  72,  85,  1 78 
Shannon,  C.  H.,  345,  366,  373 
Shannon,  j.  j.,  366 
Shaw,  G.  B.,  275 
Shaw,  Norman,  146 
Shipping — Nocturne,  198 
Shipping  at  Liverpool,  123-24 
Short,  Sir  F.,  392 
Sickert,  B.,  116,  143,  196-97 
Sickert,  W„  212-14,  21 5,  224,  229-30, 
260,  277,  280,  284,  328,  342-46 
Portrait  of,  232 
Sickert,  Mrs.  W.,  67,  159,  2^4 

Portrait  of,  I.  (Violet  and  Pink), 
260,  261,  II.  ( Green  and  Violet) ; 
322,  327 
Siesta,  The,  328 
Simpson,  J.  W.,  157 
Singleton,  Mrs.,  137 
Six  Projects,  1 04-105,  109,  115,  126, 
233 

See  Venus  and  Three  Figures 
Sketching,  66,  68 
Smalley,  G.  W.,  305 
Smith,  F.  Hopkinson,  222 
Smith,  John  Russell,  143 


Index 


Societe  Nationale  des  Beaux -Arts, 
296 

Solon,  L.,  84 

“  Songs  on  Stone”  276,  322 
Sotheby,  Messrs.,  186-87 
Soupe  d  Trois  Sous,  49,  50 
Southampton  Water,  216,  428 
South  Kensington  (Victoria  and 
Albert)  Museum,  105-106,  108,  274 
South  Kensington  Museum  Inter¬ 
national  Exhibitions,  109 
Sower,  H.,  56 
Spartali,  Mr.,  88 

Spartali,  Christine  (Countess  Edmond 
de  Cahen),  87-88 

Portrait  of.  See  Princesse  du  Pays 
de  la  Porcelaine 
r‘  Spectator,  The,”  177 
Speke  Hall,  123-24 
Speke  Shore,  123-24 
“  Standard,  The,”  424 
Stansfield,  Mrs.,  135 
Stanton,  General,  94 
Stanton,  Mrs.  Dr.,  5 
“  Star,  The,”  275 

Starr,  S.,  130,  244,  255-56,  259,  260, 
265,  276,  284,  301,  386,  387,  398 
Steevens,  G.  W.,  283 
Stephens,  F.  S.,  143 
Stevens,  Alfred  (Belgian),  235,  260,  316 
Stevens,  Alfred  (English),  250 
Stevenson,  R.  A.  M.,  282,  283,  284, 
306,  308,  335,  367 
Stillman,  W.  J.,  100 
Stillman,  Mrs.  (Marie  Spartali),  87-88, 
144,  148-49 
Stoeckl,  Baron  de,  30 
Stoker,  Bram,  144 
Stokes,  Messrs.  Frederick,  290 
Stone,  Marcus,  249-50 
Stonington,  4,  18,  26,  33,  51 
Storm,  The,  66 

Story,  J.,  137,  212,  223,  224,  239 
Story,  W.,  137,  212,  223,  224,  225 
Stott,  W.,  of  Oldham,  261 
Strahan,  W.,  71 
Strange,  E.  F.,  345 
Street  at  Saverne,  43,  50 
Street,  G.  S.,  283 
Studd,  A.,  302-303,  420,  432 
“  Studies  of  Seven  Arts,”  364-65 
“  Studio,”  The,  322 


Sturges,  J.,  346,  431 
Sullivan,  E.  J.,  220 

Sutherland,  Sir  Thomas,  147,  159,  183, 
403 

Swain,  J.,  71 
Swan  and  Iris,  272 
Swift,  Dr.  Foster,  4 
Swift,  Mary,  3-4 

Swinburne,  A.  C.,  51,  70,  79,  80,  81, 
84,  91,  92,  108-109,  118,  166,  245- 
48,  413 

Symons,  A.,  139,  183,  364-65 
Symons,  W.  C.,  277 

Tate  Gallery,  the,  90,  152 
Taylor,  Tom,  130-31,  175,  177,  293 
Teck,  Prince  of,  148,  173,  203 
Templar,  Major,  212 
“  Ten  O'Clock,  The,”  69,  1 14,  227,  237 
238-48,  252,  292 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  71 
Terborg,  194,  337 
Terry,  Edward,  1 57 
Tete  de  Paysanne,  52 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  59 
Thames,  The,  329 
Thames  in  Ice,  The,  63,  64,  68,  99 
Thames  Set  of  Etchings,  The,  65  68,  70, 

107,  108,  196 
Thames  Warehouses,  68 
Theobald,  H.  S.,  258,  303 
Thibaudeau,  A.  W.,  108 
Thomas,  Brandon,  284,  355 
Thomas,  Edmund,  61,  62,  107 
Thomas,  Percy,  61,  106-107,  127,  143 
Thomas,  Ralph,  49,  62,  143 
Thomas,  Sergeant,  61-62 
Thompson,  Sir  H.,  85,  156 

Catalogue  of  Blue  and  White  Nankin 
Porcelain,  156 

Thomson,  D.  Croal,  272,  296,  355 
Thornbury,  W.,  71 

Three  Figures,  Pink  and  Grey  ( Three 
Girls)  (see  Six  Projects),  102, 104-105, 

108,  146,  304 

Thynne,  Mrs.  (Annie  Haden),  17,  52, 
63-65, 431 
Tiepolo,  105 

“  Times,  The,”  153,  158,  167,  177,  216, 
227-28,  244,  249,  305,  357,  371 
Tintoretto,  187,  252,  331,  337 
Tissof,  J.  J.,  51,  84,  130,  134,  173 


447 


Index 


Tite  Street,  Houses  in,  209,  224,  225, 
254,  269,  409 

Titian,  175,  187,  321,  337,  360 

Tito,  E.,  190 

Todd,  Col.,  8,  9,  10 

Toilet,  The,  156 

Traer,  Mr.,  60,  100 

Traghetto,  The,  196-98,  218 

“  Trilby,”  35,  40.  3*3-25 

Trouville,  371 

"  Truth,”  294 

Tuckerman,  H.  T.,  99 

Tuckerman,  Miss,  41 1 

Tudor  House,  79,  80,  84 

Tulip,  The  {Rose  and  Gold),  322,  372 

Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  76,  165,  166,  336 

Turner,  Ross,  189,  190,  200 

Twain,  Mark,  135,  139 

Tweed,  J.,  41 1 

Twenty  Club,  Brussels,  Exhibition, 
257 

T wilighton  the  Ocean  (see  Valparaiso), 
99 

Two  Little  White  Girls  { Symphony  m 
White,  No.  III.),  101-102,  125,  129, 
233,  372 

Tyre  Smith,  The,  276 
Tyzac,  Whiteley  and  Co.,  60 


Underdown,  E.  M.,  277 
Unwin,  T.  F.,  330,  341, 412 
Unwin,  Mrs.,  341 


Valparaiso,  Journey  to,  95-97 
Valparaiso,  Paintings  of,  99,  186,  373 
Valparaiso  Bay,  260 
Vanderbilt,  G.,  347-48,  432 
Portrait  of,  354 

Vanderbilt,  Mrs  .—Portrait  of  (Ivory 
and  Gold),  354 
Van  Dyck,  386 
Van  Dyke,  J.  C.,  335 
“  Vanity  Pair,”  155,  1 57 
Vasari,  184 

Velasquez,  16,  47,  S 1 >  loz>  XI^>  I2I» 
166,  194,  243,  252,  335,  336,  359- 
369,  407 

Velvet  Gown,  The  (see  Mrs.  Leyland), 
124 

Venice,  187-201 


Venice  Etchings,  50,  108,  197,  202,  203, 
204, 217,  219, 257,  308 
Venice  International  Exhibition,  327 
Venice  Museum,  108 
Venturi,  Mme.,  118,  134 
Venus  (see  Six  Projects),  105,  233,  309 
Vermeer,  194,  337 
Veronese,  54,  187,  243 
Victoria  and  Albert  Museum.  See 
South  Kensington 
Vieille  aux  Loques,  La,  32 
Viele-Griffin,  F.,  317,  327 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  184 
Vivian,  H.,  227,  276 
Voivov,  Prof.,  1 1 
Vollon,  A.,  73,  93,  194 
Vose,  G.  L.,  3 


Wagner,  70 
Walker,  F.,  57 
Walker,  Howard,  189 
Waller,  Miss  Maud,  21 1 

Portrait  of  ( Blue  Girl),  211,  216 
Waller,  Pickford  R.,  1 58 
Walton,  E.  A.,  200,  295,  365,  366,  420, 
426,  431 

Walton,  Mrs.,  426 
Wapping,  62,  63,  64,  90,  99 
Ward,  H.  H.  and  Co.,  371 
Ward,  Leslie,  1 57 
Washington,  26,  27 

Watts,  G.  I .,  58,  82,  107,  1 19,  126,  146, 

1 52,  408 

Watts-Dunton,  T.,  79,  137,  156,  247-48 
Way,  T.  and  T.  R.,  149,  I55~56>  *79- 
186,  202, 203, 245,  276,  299,  307,  322, 
325.  329.  345.  430 
Weary,  50,  72 
Webb,  Gen.,  21,  23,  24 
Webb,  W.,  132,  314,  371,  401,  412,  432 
Webster,  D.,  20 

Wedmore,  F.,  39,  66,  141-43,  184-85 
217, 218,  278,  299, 424 
Weir,  J.  A.,  21,  140,  208 
Weir,  R.  W.,  21-22 
Westminster,  Marquis  of,  148 
Westminster,  The  Last  of  Old,  72 
Westminster  Bridge,  Old,  72 
West  Point,  1,  3,  5,  20-26,  28-29,  394 
Wheeler,  Gen.,  4x2 
Whibley,  C.,  283,  327,  340,  389 


Index 


Whibley,  Mrs.  (Ethel  Birnie  Philip), 
269,  306,  322,  327,  332,  370,  413,  420, 
430,  432 

“  Whirlwind,  The,”  276,  307 
Whistler,  Mrs.  Anna  M.  ( nee  McNeill), 
1-20,  45,  46,  80-81,  87,  94,  98, 
103-104,  no,  122,  123,  128, 
129;  death,  204-205 
Anne  (nie  Bishop),  3 
Anthony,  2 
Charles  D.,  56 
Daniel,  2 

Deborah  ( see  Lady  Haden) 

Francis,  2-3 
Gabriel,  2 

George,  4,  6,  18,  20,  27,  33,  51 
George  Washington,  1,  3-6,  14, 
16,  18  ;  death,  18  ;  portrait  of. 
Si 

Hugh,  2 

James  Abbott  McNeill ;  birth, 
1  ;  christening,  1  ;  journey  to 
Russia,  6 ;  early  portraits,  9, 
33  ;  severe  illness,  15-16  ;  return 
to  America,  18  ;  West  Point, 
20-26  ;  Coast  Survey,  27-33  ; 
arrival  in  Paris,  33  ;  journey 
to  Alsace,  43  ;  London,  53; 
journey  to  Valparaiso,  95  ; 
Ruskin  Trial,  165-80  ;  journey 
to  Venice,  1 87  ;  joins  British 
Artists,  248  ;  resigns,  265  ; 
marriage,  268-69  ;  the  Eden 
Case,  325-27,  346-53  ;  Inter¬ 
national  Society  of  Sculptors, 
Painters,  and  Gravers,  365-73  ; 
the  Academie  Carmen,  373- 
88  ;  journey  to  Rome,  359  ; 
journey  to  Corsica,  403  ;  death, 
430-32 

Portraits  of  himself,  50,  97,  322 — 
W.  with  Hat,  52 — W.  with  the 
White  Lock,  57 — W.  in  his 
Studio,  129-30 — ( Brown  and 
Gold),  355,  393 

Portrait  of,  by  Chase,  234-35  ;  by 
Boldini,  346 ;  by  Boxali,  17, 
18,  334  ;  by  Fantin,  93  ;  by 
Nicholson,  347  ;  by  Rajon,  233 
Bust  of,  by  Boehm,  1 52,  187 
Whistler  as  I  knew  him,”  229-30, 
238,  240, 259 


Whistler,  John,  14 

Lieutenant  John,  2 
Master  John,  2 
Major  John,  2,  3 
Joseph,  4 

Julia  (nee  Winans),  27 
Kensington,  3 
Kirk  Booth,  5 
Mary  (nee  Swift),  3-4 
Ralph,  2 
Rose  Fuller,  2 
Sarah,  1 

Dr.  William,  5-18,  27,  74,  93-94, 
152,  205,  244,  269,  273-74  ; 
death,  364  ;  portrait  of,  94 
Mrs.  William  (see  Miss  Helen 
Ionides),  136,  152,  159,  186, 

238,  269,  272-73,  420,  431 
White  Girl,  The  (Symphony  in  White, 
No.  I.),  63,  67,  68,  69,  73,  47,  99, 
100,  101,  109,  208 

White  House,  the,  158-64,  180,  183, 
185-86 

White  Note,  A,  279 
White,  C.  Harry,  387 
Whitman,  Mrs.  Sarah,  41 1 
Wilde,  Oscar,  137,  141,  186,  187,  212, 
224-28,  241, 244, 31 1, 324 
Wilkie,  Sir  David,  249 
Wilkins,  W.  H.,  276 
Wilkinson,  Mr.,  187 
Williams,  Capt.,  51 

Williams,  Charlotte  —  Portrait  of, 

321 

Williamson,  Dr.  G.  C.,  57 
Wills,  W.  G.,  83,  173 
Wilson,  H.,  362,  431 
Wilstach  Collection,  214,  428 
Wimbush,  W.  L.,  351,  392 
Winans,  Louis,  51 
Winans,  Ross,  27 
Winans,  Thomas,  27,  33,  62 
Windsor  Castle  Collection,  108,  169, 
274 

Windus,  W.  L.,  146 
Wine  Glass,  The,  156 
Winged  Hat,  The,  276 
Winstanley,  W.,  6 
Wisselingh,  E.  J.  van,  277 
Wistler  de  Westhannye,  Joha  le,  2 
Woakes,  Miss,  356 
Portrait  of,  356 


449 


Index 


Wolseley,  Lord,  137 

Portrait  of,  140 
Wolseley,  Lady,  137,  14° 

Woods,  H.,  188,  190-92 
“  World,  The,"  155,  231,  247,  258-59, 
264 

Working  Women’s  College,  Queen’s 
Square  Exhibition,  279-80 
Wortley,  Stuart,  277 
Wreck,  The,  51 
Wuerpel,  E.  H.,  309,  319 
Wyndham,  Hon  P.,  169 
Wyndham,  Hon.  Mrs.  P.,  152,  169 


Yates,  E.  (“  Atlas  ”),  277,  293 
“  Yellow  Book,  The,"  3x0 
Yellow  Buskin,  The,  157,  213-14,  276 
278,  305.  428 

Yellow  House,  Lannion,  the,  316 


Zaandam,  273,  274 
Zabern  Museum,  43 
Zaehmsdorf,  Messrs.,  262 
Zalinski,  Major,  26 
Zola,  E.,  73,  431 
Zuechero,  7,  69 


Printed  by 

BALL AN TYNE  &  COMPANY  LTD 
Tavistock  Street  Covent  Garden 


London  W.C. 


